ISBN: 1-58939-947-1, $12.95, softcover, 138 pages
"Our Own Words" is a collection of writings by immigrant and refugee high school students studying English as a second language. The students come from all over the world and are in first or second year ESL classes. The writing reflects this beginning level of English proficiency. Their teachers continuously tell the students that they want to hear what they have to say. Writing is not used here as a grammar teaching device, but as an outlet to express themselves. The stories within appear just as the students wrote them, without editing or corrections.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Paul Siemering has been a career teacher all his life and has taught ESL at all levels for 30 years. Many of the stories within "Our Own Words" were written in classes that he volunteered as a literacy and writing instructor.