DOUGLAS — Cochise College students will offer an advance taste of the second edition of “We Are Stories,” a book compilation that captures the oral history of the Arizona-Sonora borderland community, this Thursday, May 9, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theatre on the Douglas Campus.
The video presentation, led by the English as a Second Language students who compiled the stories this academic year, is free and open to students as well as members of the community.
Cochise College instructor Margarita Ramirez Loya implemented “The Oral History Project” within her ESL classes last year, resulting in the first edition of “We Are Stories,” published in summer 2012. But even earlier than that, she’d been using oral and digital storytelling techniques in her classroom as a primary vehicle to help her students learn English.
“Students’ language development, as well as their communication skills, has grown,” Ramirez Loya said last year. “But, most importantly, I have seen them engaged in their own learning, taking responsibility and ownership of their growth in important academic and social skills. They take pride to represent Cochise College in each presentation that they carry out. The Oral History Project has turned into a vehicle to learning.”
The project begins with ESL students contacting older citizens from the Douglas and surrounding communities. They draw up questions, conduct interviews and edit audio to create engaging, true stories. The final product is unveiled to the public in two forms: written for inclusion in the “We Are Stories” book series and audibly presented in venues around Cochise County.
On Thursday night, the students involved in this year’s project will show a video “book trailer” previewing “We Are Stories and Legends,” the title of the series’ second edition, which will include student work from fall 2012, spring 2013 and the upcoming fall 2013 semesters. Student presenters include Mona Elhefnawy, Patricia Garza, Vanessa Rivera, Yeongil Kim, Jennifer Gomez and Cholong Gil.
“Basically, the event at the Little Theatre is a celebration of language acquisition, a celebration of the storytellers’ lives, and it also represents my teaching philosophy that language acquisition is much more meaningful if we create non-traditional learning environments in which students are able to work with the community in projects that require the use of strong communication skills,” Ramirez Loya said. “Our stories and narratives for the digital stories are written with passion and with purpose.”
For more information about The Oral History Project and book trailer presentation, contact Ramirez Loya at ramirezloyam@cochise.edu.