Poetry & Superheroes: Students Learn English Creatively

All HELP students participate in a three-year English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum taught by native speakers. The program starts with an introduction to grammar, speaking, and writing, and progresses to an introduction to literature. In the final two years, ESL instruction is integrated with the leadership curriculum, which incorporates civic education and community service projects to train students to be engaged, active citizens.

This year has been a busy and productive one for the ESL program, with students generating some creative and insightful work. We are discovering some literary talent among our students,and are excited to share examples from two assignments that especially sparked students’ interest.

Preposition Poems: As part of a unit on poetry and prepositions, English 1 students were asked to write a poem with a preposition at the beginning of each line, then memorize and recite it to the class. Here are two examples:

FREEDOM Above trees, Between two mountains, Through nature, Near the river, Among people, Around Haïti, Into my heart, I feel the wind of peace and love, I see freedom is coming.--- Santa Noella Cadet (agronomy, ’17)

MY BEST FRIENDIn Haiti on a hilly street, I met him. Down the road, I saw an angel. At Muncheez, I finally found him. Next to me, he came to sit down. In my heart, I said wow!! We became good friends. Below us there are only the clouds. Around us, nothing can take away our friendship, we were so happy. On January 12th, 2010, I lost him.--- Rebecca Jacques Leblanc (business management, '16)

Create-Your-Own Superheroes: To practice descriptions and verb tenses, English 2 students were asked to invent a Haitian superhero that fights to provide solutions to pressing issues. Bertin-Junior Ramy (agronomy, ’17) came up with Ecophile, who protects Haiti’s natural environment against deforestation and pollution.

Ecophile was born on May 1, 1882 in Greenland. His mother’s name was Piney Apple. She cultivated a special fruit and after she passed away in 1892 people gave her name to this fruit that today we call “pineapple.” It was almost the same thing for his father: his name was Brocc Holly and he cultivated a vegetable that today we call “broccoli.”

Ecophile’s name comes from the Greek word that means “friend of the environment." He has some great powers that he inherited from his parents. From his big mouth, he’s able to throw fire and water. He hardly ever throws fire but always water in order to water the plants to help them grow. He also throws water to clean all the streets. Ecophile fights for a healthy environment, he fights against pollution, against deforestation, and against people who put garbage in the streets.

It’s easy to identify Ecophile: he wears a green one-piece suit with a white belt. On his suit there is a picture of a tree, the symbol of a stable environment that has a lot of trees everywhere.--- Bertin-Junior Ramy