Today was my fourth trip to tutor the students at Animo Inglewood. I feel like I’m really getting the hang of it now, like I’m really getting to know these kids, their strengths and weaknesses as writers and the sharp pieces of their young lives that make up the people they are becoming.
This week is their Spring Break. You remember Spring Break don’t you? I remember leaving all of my school books in the trunk of the car. I remember sleeping in as late as I could each day. I remember meeting up with friends every afternoon, driving around aimlessly, sneaking into parks at night to lie on my back in the cool March grass. I remember wishing that classes would never begin again.
I certainly don’t remember showing up at school on the first day of the break, a Saturday, to sit in a classroom for three hours working on my eighth draft of an essay. But that is exactly what the students at Animo are doing with their precious free time and I couldn’t be more proud of them.
Today, two of the students I met with finished final drafts of their work. Rocio, a sweet and quiet ninth grader with green rubber bands encircling the braces on her teeth, made the finishing touches on an essay about the loss of her best friend to a gang shooting when they were twelve years old. She wrote, with astonishing detail, about visiting the crime scene with her friends and how, together, they were able to make it through the funeral and subsequent anniversaries of Kristen’s death. I couldn’t believe how brave she was to explore this experience and her intense feelings of loss. I was astounded by her dedication to working so diligently through each draft and was delighted by the way she laughed as I circled grammatical errors and how patiently she worked to solve the riddles of awkward sentences.
Daniel, a shy tenth grader, also finished the final draft of his essay today. He wrote a critical analysis on a theory of teamwork which states that, for a team to function at its highest, no player must stand above the rest. He used examples from his own life as well as current sports teams and tied the whole thing off by sweetly thanking his reader for indulging him and rewarding them with a quote of his own. I was thoroughly impressed with his tireless pursuit of a written critical argument, flashing back, with a grimace, to my own formless essays in tenth grade.
Before I left today, I stood over both Rocio and Daniel as they shut down their laptops, and told them how proud they should be of themselves. They both smiled bashfully, eyes slanted away from each other. I really can’t tell who is getting more out of this experience — them or me. Even though I’d gotten up earlier than usual this morning, on not enough sleep, I was buzzing for the rest of the day. I haven’t felt this energized in a long time.
