Students Writing and Photos

You can read the students’ bios below. Please check back in May for completed student projects.

Abd Al Sada, Nour

 When I was 7 years old, in Iraq, some friends taught me how to say bad things to some of my friends. Sometimes I told them to my teachers also and they hit me on my hands. I saw one day my friends told a student at school some negative things. After they said this to the students, every one of my friends...
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Abdulkadir, Amina

 Arizona Law is Affecting what we Need to Take: Many of the students at Catalina Magnet High School have four hours of English when they are supposed to be taking the classes they need to graduate. If they do not take the classes they need to graduate, they have to stay for one or two years just to finish...
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Al Khazrag, Yassir

 School Education: I misbehave in my classes for a lot of reasons: 1) Sometimes I don’t understand what the teacher talks about. 2) Or sometimes I feel shy 3) Or sometimes I hate the class that I’m studying in; it make me nervous or I don’t like to sit in that classroom. 4) Or I’m not comfortable...
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Altamirano, Erick

 We Are the Future In my life there is something that I feel scared about, and this is preparing for and going to college. I am not sure if I can go to college because of money and even if there are many scholarships I think about my legal status and this makes me more afraid. If I do manage to go, I...
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Amador, Adan

 In 1995, when I was seven years old, I started to meet a lot of people in my community of La Lima in Honduras and learn about them. Many people recognized me because of my father. He was very popular, not like an artist or something like that; my father was a respected man for many people of my community...
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Chibasa, Awa

 STOP DISCRIMINATION Discrimination! Discrimination! Discrimination! Where are we going with hate, prejudice and conflict? Feeling like this race is better than that, We cannot change what God created, because we are his image. Whites, Black, Asians we are all human beings. Why not love? Discrimination!...
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Chibasa, Eka

 TILL WHEN, DIVISION??? When is life going to change with its difficulties of people being divided? Most people practice division, but not unity. We are different, but yet equal. When I left my continent of Africa I thought life will never be the same again because people were talking about the United...
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Chibasa, Thierry

 Think Twice Before You Judge D.R. Congo, French/Swahili Thierry is the name I was given by my parents when God allowed me to live. It means “no troubles,” but my own country has many troubles. I came from one of the biggest countries in Africa called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My country...
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Cummings, Naomi

 JUDGE ME NOT: Why judge me if you don’t know me? Don’t judge me because of the way I dress, the place I am from, or the way I look. It hurts me to see people being judged. When I first started school on December 1, 2004, I was sitting in my ESL English class and the teacher asked me to introduce...
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Dahal, Bhagawati

 GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE BEFORE YOU JUDGE THEM I grew up in a small and crowded city in a refugee camp in Nepal where I saw people judging each other by how they look, how they act and their family background. I remember my neighbor; he was a drunkard. He always drank and came to the house to beat his...
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Dahal, Laxmi

 Be in My Shoes or Change is Needed ~ When I entered Catalina Magnet High School, I felt like I was in my dream land. Being an immigrant student and not having a proficient level of English, I was placed in E.S.L. class. I started to study two English classes, Honors Physics, mathematics, American History...
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Emmanuelina, Muzakeye

 How we have to be good to each other: When I was in my country, I used to fight with people. If someone said something bad, I didn’t feel good. I felt angry when somebody told me I am stupid or crazy. I slapped them and started to fight. When I was 14 years old, I never respected anyone, except my...
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Eshate, Tinsaye

 Care about your Education: The most important thing in my life is to make my mom and my family happy. My mom is happy when I get a good grade because she knows that I did well in the classroom. My mom wants me to have a better future and live out her dreams. I agree with that because all families want...
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Falilova, Khanifa

 Creating a Change of Four ESL Classes: I want to change four classes of ESL I feel uninterested in studying four hours of English. The government has made this decision that if a student doesn’t pass the AZELLA test, they will have four hours of English. The government makes this decision because...
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Falilova, Nailya

 Behave in class - I have a class in which I don’t know anybody; I don’t have a friend in that class. In that class, I see people who don’t care who is sitting next to them, even if I talk to them. One day, I asked a girl who was sitting next to me, “I don’t understand how to do this assignment...
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Frorasi, Tuyizere

 When I was a little child, I liked to play so much with friends. There was one of my friends, not really my friend, who liked to fight with us. She wanted to judge everything I did. She wanted me to bring her foods, drinks, and my clothes for her to wear. She didn’t think about my mother, what she...
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Hameed, Ali

 When People Don’t Think about Others: When I moved from Baghdad to Egypt, my life changed because there were a lot of different people to see and many different things that I hadn’t learned. It was like something happened to me. It was a hard thing for me to change my life based on what my parents...
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Hameed, Fatma

 Judging People: I feel that people who judge each other are too bad. In Iraq, I was one of them because I had friends in school and we were judging the new students. I didn’t know how we made them feel when we judged them. We were making fun of them and talking about them, calling them ugly. Also,...
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Ighani, Shahin

 “Are you a terrorist?” Students in my middle school classes used to ask me. My face got red, and I got angry. I got up and went outside. They started telling me bad words. They also called me names. After I heard those words, I didn’t want to go back to school. I told my teacher and she talked...
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Jerome, Ngenzirabona

 Behave History: The things you should do to get respect are: 1. First you should respect yourself. If you have respect for yourself, you feel better. 2. When you feel better, you feel like helping others. 3. When you help others, they feel better about themselves. 4. Then people have respect. There...
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Khanal, Chandra

 I am Chandra. I am from Nepal. Over 105,000 Bhutanese have spent up to 15 years living in refugee camps established in Nepal by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The UNHCR and agency volunteers help people to get food and vegetables, but refugees don’t have enough money to fulfill their...
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Klipic, Zeljka

 How I Feel about ESL English: In Tucson now there is a policy that students from different countries who are not proficient in English, according to the AZELLA test, have to have four hours of ESL English. When new students that are learning are in ESL English, they will work on writing, grammar, vocabulary...
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Macias, Martin

 Help for the Needy In the United States, there is a lot of help. There is help for refugees, homeless people, animals, and veterans. There is even help for people outside the country. The problem is that there is almost no help for illegal immigrants. There are some organizations, like Chicanos Por...
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Maie, Mallidy

 Scared to ask questions I always want to get more help with my work, but I don’t know how to ask my teacher because I am afraid to ask. I am scared to ask when I need help because it is different here. Back in my home country, when I went to school I would go and sit in the classroom and talk and...
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Mubembe, Sara

 Knowing people before judging them is advantageous. In the world, we all have different colors and different backgrounds, but we are all equal.  We are all human beings. We all have red blood even though we have different colors and different back grounds. One of my best friends used to take the school...
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Nduwimana, Egide

 Facing A New Language ~The Change I (We) Need School is my hope and dream. School is my home, and school brings me tranquility. I’m a guy who’s growing in his dreams and in the encouragements of his community around him. The dreams I mention are to get enough English knowledge and, in the future,...
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Nepal, Hari

 It is very difficult for me, as well as for other students, to have four ESL class because we don’t have enough time to study other essential subjects that are required for graduation. Sometimes, I feel that the government is trying to put obstacles in our life by making 4 hours of English class....
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Ruiz, Alma

 Poverty-Let’s End It Pobrasa -  Terminémosla Living in poverty                                                      Viviendo en la pobresa is painful                                                                  ...
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Shakmamedov, Khabib

 Help for Newcomers I came to the U.S. on February 9, 2006. A refugee resettlement agency, the I.R.C., helped my family to get food, a bus pass and things for the apartment. They gave us nice beds, a nice TV, a good vacuum, and a bicycle.  I appreciate the I.R.C. agency. They are nice to the people...
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