Los Angeles Unified School District
District II

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In this one-of- a -kind program, high school students are trained for six weeks by educator Shari Sack to be teen storytellers. The students are prepared through whole class discussion covering the history of communication, developing public speaking skills and storytelling techniques. The students then visit local elementary schools to tell stories and read aloud. Storytelling is a vehicle to support District goals for literacy, oral communication, community service, job skills preparation while providing a basis to exceed the standards for learning in high school.

The program was developed to fill the void in secondary literacy programs serving our students today with particular sensitivity to the "at-risk" and underachieving youngsters in our schools. Its implementation four years ago has provided a growing number of LAUSD continuation campuses with an opportunity for articulation and interaction through the development or ongoing tutoring, read-aloud programs and storytelling events with neighborhood elementary schools.

An average class is 14-17 students. Several hundred continuation students have participated in the program since its inceptions and those students have told stories to primary kids-kindergarten through second grade- in numbers pushing 20,000! The high schoolers begin to realize the positive impact they can have on the world around them. The elementary kids experience the importance of reading, watching older students as role models create magic through literature, making books come alive, leaving impressions that last a lifetime.

Student outcomes/impacts and successes meld into one category as the program attains the following measurable goals: Upon successful completion of the course, students have earned credits toward graduation. Students gain a greater facility with language and discover the pleasures and power that reading provides; Secondary students venture into their communities where relationships are forged and the foundation laid for continued participation and vested involvement in their expanded new world.

This program identifies and cultivates the often undeserved youngster in our schools through exposure to the unlimited, empowering aspects of literacy and communications. This is truly a win-win situation.