2270 Highway 133
Carbondale , Co 81623
March, 2014
Volume 7 Issue 6
The Rampage
Share Your Story makes impact -Jonny Aranda and Tavia Teitler
It’s hard to hate someone when you don’t know them, and in the past weeks students and teachers have been working to erase hate by sharing the stories of their lives in their English classes. The idea of Share Your Story sparked from a group of Rams Unidos members who felt that a lot of the miscommunication at their school resulted from not knowing enough about their fellow classmates. Some members recalled a similar event that had taken place two years ago in the middle school with very powerful results and believed that a similar concept would be beneficial at RFHS. Share Your Story fit very well with the purpose of Rams Unidos. Denise Wright,English teacher at RFHS, said that the Rams Unidos group wants to unite the school and thinks these are fundamental activities to understand their peers. Many Rams Unidos members are pleased with the way this event turned out and are looking for ways to improve it in the future. English teachers agreed to have “I feel more connected to my classShare Your Story mates in a way because they know take place in their some things that have happened to me classrooms over and could possibly support me in hard- the course of a couple weeks ships” Selected stu-Areli Tapia dents kickstarted the event by standing up in front of their English classes and sharing their story. The rest of the students then received a worksheet with guidelines to help write down their own story. The sheet included questions and prompts about their values, experiences, and hopes for the future. Some examples of the prompts were, “What motivates me to achieve my hopes and dreams is:_____” and “My greatest fear in life is:_____.” These type of questions were ones that really made the students think about themselves more deeply. The reaction in the student body was mostly positive. During this same time, poet and singer Myrlin Hepworth, toured around the school and conducted poetry workshops in many English classes. Hepworth encouraged students to write their own poems and express themselves in front of the class. Hepworth’s presence offered students a chance to get to know each other even if it was just by reading a poem together. The combination of poetry and share your story was powerful for many, and the two events complimented each other perfectly. English Teacher Adam Carballeira was one the coordinators of the event and lead share you story in many of the classrooms. Carb believes that students sharing their stories improved the culture of his classroom and gave his students courage to share their their ideas and “I think every single kid has a writing in front of the class. Carb claimed fascinating life, and they are the that while a student was ones that should give voice to it.” sharing their story his -Adam Carballeira room was dead silent, and described the audience was “captivated”. Success of the event varied between classrooms. Whether or not a student felt comfortable depended on the atmosphere of the classrooms. Some stories went deeper than others, but most students seemed to have gained something from the experience. “Now I know what they are going through and why they act that way,” commented freshmen Moises Camacho. Many students and staff said they would like to see the event take place again and there seems to be possibility of it occurring in some form in the future. Sharing their stories was terrifying for some students but those who had the courage to push through learned about their classmates and helped in uniting RFHS.
Photo by Grace Brown In the past month, RFHS students and teachers have been working to create understanding and unity in the school by sharing their life stories with one another. Slam poet Myrlin Hepworth, pictured above, visited RFHS throughout the month of February to help students create poetry that further expressed themselves.
Share your secret...anonymously -Jacky Jacquez “I want to be an artist...” The PostSecret project is a way to share your secrets, but anonymously. Posting your secrets may help other people with their problems. The project is decorating a postcard and anonymously portraying a secret. Frank Warren, who founded PostSecret in 2008, has received hundreds of thousands of secrets. He gets different kinds of cards with people explaining their embarrassing habits, criminal activity, confessions, hopes and dreams. Warren claims that the postcards are inspirational to those who read them and has healing powers for those who write them. The postcards can offer people hope. At RFHS, English teacher Krystal Wu decided to introduce her students to Warren’s PostSecret project which became an art project in her classes as part of Share Your Story. As students shared their stories with the class, they were listening to each other’s words for “secrets” or quotes that stood out to them. They turned their fellow students’ words into postcard-sized pieces of art. These postcard secrets helped students succeed mentally and emotionally during Share Your Story weeks, which could have been boring or unpopular. Kimberly Guzman, a sophomore at RFHS, added that she was able to share something that she has “never shared before.” She liked the format of the PostSecret project because it was completely anonymous: “Your secret is kind of hidden in a way, so it doesn’t have to be so clear to others. In some way, it still remains a secret.” The postcards help students have a good understanding of what others have been through. Some examples that are displayed in Wu’s classroom are: “I felt so strong when my stomach was empty”; “I like proving everyone wrong who doubted me”; “My greatest fear in my life is dying alone.” Guzman explained the purpose of the PostSecret project: “To illustrate someones secret beyond it being just words.” See more postcards at postsecret.com.
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