STUDENTS GROWING 
FROM INTEGRATED, 
MULTILINGUAL MEDIA CLASS

Sarita McReynolds' Multilingual Media Course is teaching students from Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa and the former Soviet republics more about English, biology, communications and the Internet.

The class is involved in a project to develop a bilingual web site for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The site focuses on the 40 species of mammals living on the Hanford Reach National Monument.

The site is nearing completion in English and Spanish, and the students are now creating flash animations of stories they have written about several of the animals. Students from Russia and other countries have also worked on web pages in other languages, but those pages are not part of the official web site.

You can see their work at http://www.handsontheland.org.  Follow the links to STUDENT PROJECTS, then WEB SITES, then HANFORD REACH, and finally MAMMALS OF THE HANFORD REACH.

"Students did the research, developed the web site, drew the pictures of each mammal, wrote the stories, and then translated it all into Spanish," Mrs. McReynolds explains.

The teacher created the innovative course to address several needs.

"As an educator and community leader, I heard a great deal of discussion about the need for bilingual employees with computer skills. I also saw students losing literacy in their first languages because they couldn't see the value. At the same time, they needed to improve their English skills," Mrs. McReynolds explains.

"Students also remember more when they can apply what they learn in concrete ways to real-life situations," she adds. "So, I combined all those needs and came up with the idea for a Multilingual Media Class."

The course appears to be benefiting her students precisely as planned.

"The class helps students in several ways," explains Mrs. McReynolds. "They learn the writing process. That is to say: develop an idea, research information, organize it, write a rough draft, edit and polish, write a final copy, and publish."

They also develop language skills in both English and their native language.

And the students "begin to appreciate the importance of bilingualism," Mrs. McReynolds says. "There is validation of their first language and culture, as well as a chance to learn about other languages and cultures.

"In major projects, teamwork is critical, so they learn the value of communicating with team members and checking each other's work. The portfolios they make are also useful when applying for jobs or scholarships."

Mrs. McReynolds says the constant discussion among educators about the value of portfolios and what should be in them also inspired her efforts.

"Everyone seemed to be talking and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. When they did begin to have students make portfolios, it was nothing more than a collection of the year's student work organized into a very thick binder," she says.

"It seemed to me that students who showed up at job interviews with a 3-inch thick binder of their school papers would be unlikely to impress anyone," Mrs. McReynolds says.

She then spoke to a corporate communications specialist and asked her to help design some guidelines for creating a professional portfolio. Each student in the Multilingual Media Class is now required to make a professional portfolio to assist with job and scholarship interviews. This year, they are experimenting with electronic portfolios.

"In the past, students from my class have been awarded a total of more than $15,000 in scholarship," Mrs. McReynolds says. "Interview committees have told me they were impressed with the portfolios."

Her class had the opportunity to participate in a Digital Design Pilot Project with Macromedia and OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction).

"I have gotten valuable training in how to use the software. There is an entire curriculum for teaching digital design," Mrs. McReynolds explains. "Through this pilot project we have had access to cutting-edge digital design software from Macromedia."

Mrs. McReynolds was also selected for the Teacher Leadership Project for the 2001-2002 year, which provided her class with five new computers, a projector and printer.

Ultimately, after all those critical elements came together, Mrs. McReynolds' involvement with the Wilderness Technology Alliance led to the opportunity to join the "Hands on the Land Project" and work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help develop a web site about the Hanford Reach.

There are 17 students in the class this year, including:

What do the students think about the class?

"This is a very awesome class. I'm planning to go to college this year, so this class helps me a lot," says Margarita Momotok. "I learned how to use computers and how to do a lot of other things. Now I know how to create web pages and how to do animation. I appreciate my teacher, Mrs. Sarita's help."

"The Multilingual Media Class is a wonderful class," agrees former student Angelita Chavez. "It helped me learn more about other languages and actually use them.

"The things I learned to do, like Powerpoint and my portfolio, are things I still use today for my other classes, for example leadership and government classes. I do presentations and go on my interviews using the things I learned in Multilingual Media Class. I really loved that I took this class as a freshman," she says.

Anh Tran from Vietnam says, "This class is cool because you draw pictures and you put them on the web. I drew the flash movie, and the story goes with the flash. I learned a lot of stuff in this class. I'm so happy."

Lina Borshch from Moldova (former USSR) also felt the class was very beneficial.

"This is a great class because it gives me the opportunity to use my own language (Russian), which I don't want to forget. Right now I'm learning about web design and animation. We can also use our drawing skills, because we're doing a flash movie for a web site," she says.

Dave Zelenka of the federally funded Hands on the Land Project says he's been very impressed with the work completed by Mrs. McReynolds' class.

"Her class is doing wonderful work. Their artwork, stories and translations have far exceeded my expectation for this project," he says. "Beautiful work. Their character truly shines within the Mammals of Hanford web pages.

Mr. Zalenka says such projects are very beneficial to students.

"The best thing about these projects is that they're real," says Mr. Zalenka, who works for the Wilderness Technology Alliance. "The projects are not contrived, and the students see that. The work is authentic. The students feel like they've done something important. The Alliance is really into service learning. It's so much more valid than doing something artificial."

Other teachers who would like to take on such a project can contact the Alliance through its web site at www.wildtech.org.