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One of the paradoxes of the teaching life is how much students can teach the teacher!  Not long ago, a creative writing student introduced me to the work of writer Dave Eggers and  his involvement in the formation of 826 Valencia — a writing centre for kids in the Mission district of San Francisco.  Colleague Aline has written about this centre in a previous post well worth checking out.

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting 826 Valencia while in San Francisco a few weeks ago.  While browsing in the brilliantly conceived and designed Pirate Store, I also got a chance to pick up a packet of student publications produced by the centre’s students.  Available to educators at a ten percent discount (another enlightened perk), the packet contained a newsletter called Straight-Up News by the kids of Everett Middle School, a Dictionary of New Words called FrisCoSWim, PizZinNeR, SKamissSioN, GirAfFEGheTti, SEeksIstEr and Other Words We Need to Write About Our Summer, a multi-authored booklet called 2 Seconds Plus: A Mixture of Thoughts and Images, a recipe booklet called The Kid’s Table, Issue No. 4 of Parasol and Paroxysm: The Journal of the Writing and Publishing Apprentices and Vol. 4 of Look Closer, a book of short student writings in Spanish and English.

As these titles indicate, the assembled array of print writings in forms of booklets, magazines, newspapers and dictionaries cover the gamut in the way kids can express themselves in words.  Did you know that a chinburrito, for example, is ‘Chinese food in a burrito’? (dictionary)  Or that ‘femcee’ is the term used to describe female voices in the art of spoken poetry? (Straight-Up News)  Or that Sienna Park is looking for her housecat sister Heather, who can talk in three languages — Catish, Korean and English? (2 Seconds Plus)  And that Margot learned to like the ‘brown thingy-ma-bobs’ on her pizza that turned out to be mushrooms? (The Kids Table)

I enjoyed reading the writing of the students of 826 Valencia.   Their energy and creativity are inspiring to me as a writing teacher.  Do you get inspiration from your students?  What interesting things have they written about?  If you can share, please do!