RBERNing Questions

Showcasing Cultural Stories Globally: The Cross-Cultural Storytelling Project w/Melissa Campesi

• Yasmeen Coaxum • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Episode Summary:
In this episode, Melissa discusses impactful ways to showcase the rich cultural landscape of our multilingual students on an international level. Through the Cross-Cultural Storytelling project, both students and educators hold and mold the power of personal cultural narratives that can open doors to better communication both in and outside of the classroom, expanding the reach of a deeper understanding of our global diversity . If you’re curious about learning a step by step process of how to tap into your students’ cultural resources, publishing their work on a dynamic platform, or even how to implement a lesson around the significance of the “cultural iceberg” at different levels, listen in for these practical tips!
 
RBERNing Questions for this Episode:
1- What gave you the inspiration to start the Cross-Cultural Storytelling Project and what is its biggest benefit in the world of ELL & ML education?

2- What is the “Cultural Iceberg”, and how does it help unpack the topic of culture in the classroom?

3- For educators who might want to do something similar in terms of showcasing their students’ written work, can you tell us about the best way to go about the publishing process? 

Full BIO:

Melissa Campesi is an English Language Specialist, a Children's Author, and the Creator And Founder of the Cross-Cultural Storytelling Project. In the past few years, her passion has been to virtually visit classrooms around the world and facilitate children to learn about their familial roots & embrace their cultural heritage to develop a positive social identity within their communities and beyond. 

Melissa's mission with this unique interactive online platform is to connect students and educators from all over the world to share their culture through storytelling, provide culturally relevant resources, and inspire the next generation of global citizens.

Resources:
Websites/Social Media:
www.crossculturalstorytelling.com
www.melissacampesi.com

Twitter (X): @melissa_campesi

Instagram: @melissa_aurora_campesi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-campesi-5a13b7190/

***Since recording this episode, Melissa has contributed to a chapter in the below new scholarly book, released earlier this month with Dr. Angello Villarreal, published by IGI Global: https://lnkd.in/eQyKv745


To find out more about Mid-State RBERN at OCM BOCES' services, listen to season 1 of the show with host Collette Farone-Goodwin, or to receive CTLE credit for listening to episodes, click here: https://midstaterbern.org/


Yasmeen:

Melissa Campesi is an English language specialist. children's author and the creator and founder of the cross-cultural storytelling project. In the past few years, her passion has been to virtually visit classrooms around the world and help children to learn about their familial roots and embrace their cultural heritage to develop a positive social identity within their communities and beyond. Melissa's mission with this unique interactive online platform is to connect students and educators from all over the world to share their culture through storytelling, provide culturally relevant resources and inspire the next generation of global citizens. Welcome to RBERNing Questions, a professional learning podcast where we answer your most compelling questions about teaching, serving, and supporting multilingual learners. I'm your host, Yasmeen Coaxum, and through our talks, I look forward to bringing the methods, philosophies, and stories behind teaching multilingual learners to light. Let's get into the show. So hello, Melissa Campesi it is so nice to have you on RBERNing questions today. How are you today?

Melissa:

Hi, Yasmeen. I'm doing well and elated to be here with you to dive deeper into language and culture and everything ELL and multilingual learners.

Yasmeen:

Okay, so let's start with you telling us a little bit about your current role in education.

Melissa:

So I was formerly an ESL educator for K 2 school. Then I left that and worked with adult ESL, students in the same area and from there I started my own consulting business and I like to work with children, I like to work with educators, to bring in more cultural education into the classrooms.

Yasmeen:

Okay, so what inspired you, from the beginning basically to become an educator of ELLs and MLs?

Melissa:

So my inspiration to become an ELL educator is through my own experience of having my family, immigrate to this country, my family, on my mother's side, my mother was born in Cuba and about when she was four years old, they left Cuba and went to live in Spain because my grandmother was from Spain and they lived there for a couple of months. And after that, my grandfather decided to come to New York and they lived in New York and, their immigrant story has always been embedded in me and it has inspired me to help other families who come from a similar background. And knowing the challenges and the triumphs of being an immigrant family, is my passion to, to help others as well. And also what is another thing that's important to me is literacy and children. So if I could bring all those three things together, I feel that's my purpose in life.

Yasmeen:

Okay, great, and, I'm always curious as to whether people who have, like, a similar background, like a background where their family migrated here, where maybe a different language was spoken in the home, et cetera, what was your feeling when you started attending school? Was there any educator that you feel, really resonated with you, that you might've wanted to mimic as you got into education. so tell us a little bit about that.

Melissa:

So my first, I have to say, my first educators that inspired me to be an educator was my own mother. she was a special educator and bilingual, teacher in Queens for about 25 years. And I would visit her classroom growing up and all her students only spoke Spanish and she would teach the different content areas in Spanish for them. and also in, while teaching English, so it was like almost like a dual language program and that inspired and sparked something in me to value the language and the identities of students. Um, and then later on in life, in high school, my love of literacy and, literature sparked through one of my high school teachers, and that also brought my love for teaching, the importance of literacy and how we can express ourselves through those avenues.

Yasmeen:

It's always, good to kind of hear the background story. If, there was somebody who really had a positive impact. So I am going to read a little bit of the project mission statement The cross cultural storytelling project is a one of a kind collaborative platform that enables learners and educators around the globe to connect through this virtual and easily accessible project, we envision a world where students engage with cultural story and educators share their culturally responsive teaching resources and reflections, aiming to form deep connections and network students and educators, we wish to transform how pedagogical tools are brought into practice. And in doing so, we aspire to form global citizens who are cognizant and respectful of the diversity found across the globe. This project lets students share their stories about their unique lifestyles, daily experiences, learning opportunities, passions, and everything in between through multicultural communication. That is a really strong mission statement. This is great. So what gave you the inspiration to actually start The Cross Cultural Storytelling Project, and what would you say is its biggest benefit in the world of English language learning and multilingual learning?

Melissa:

So I'm going to start before COVID. So pre-COVID, I wrote a children's book called,"I am an English Language Learner," and they are eight stories about my students who came from different countries and they're expressing their journeys to the United States and what it feels like firsthand to be an English language learner. Then, so I started that project and went to started visiting schools and everything, then COVID hit. So I went on Twitter, I connected with all these other educators globally, and I would virtually talk about my book to classrooms on using an online platform. So while I was doing this, I've learned so much working with the educators from different countries or from different states in the United States, and hearing their students' stories. It sparked something else inside of me that I go, I have to expand this and extend this a little bit more. And I wanted to create a platform where students could share freely their stories because there is something to say about, telling your story to your, to the students in your classroom or to peers in the classroom. But when you have that opportunity to share it with students or educators from other parts of the world, I think that is very profound and can really make the world change in a positive way. So this is why I started this platform to connect educators with other educators, and also for other educators in other parts of the world to learn about students who they may never have, but can learn so much from.

Yasmeen:

So I think that, I mean, this is one of the positive things that kind of came out of the pandemic right was that I think people became more aware of the need to have a broader reach right like the of the globalization of everything right and the accessibility of that through these online platforms, such as the one we're speaking on right now. And I definitely think that a lot of times. especially, in the K through 12 schools here in the States, your people, or maybe educators aren't really reaching out in terms of this kind of like global connection, making a global connection. So I feel like this project, is very important and should definitely be, embraced by, as many educators as possible. I'm going to just take a little bit of an excerpt or read a little bit of an excerpt from, 1 of your students. Okay, just to give our listeners an idea of what these stories are like. This particular one is titled, My Mexican Culture, and it says,"At home, we practice Mexican culture. Mexico is a large country in North America. I am so excited for you to learn about my culture. I hope you have fun on my heritage journey. I love Mexican food. Many of our meals include tacos and quesadillas. My favorite food is quesadillas, especially with cheese that stretches and with chicken. Mexican food is a big part of my culture because cooking traditional food is a way of preserving our culture when moving to new places. Mexican artwork is beautiful. In Mexico, people draw skulls and inside the skull, they will paint flowers and other beautiful thing." I'm just going to skip to the bottom where she then says,"An aspiration I have is to learn more Spanish and then I want to go on a trip to Mexico to visit my family. Another thing I want to have from my culture is a quinceanera. If you don't know what that is, it is when a Mexican girl turns 15 years old and her parents throw a big party. It celebrates moving through girlhood to womanhood." So this is just packed with so much cultural information, so much pride in the different traditions of this 5th grade student's culture, and, I just think that it's a really powerful thing for students to be able to reflect on that and to have a voice where that is concerned. So can you explain a bit about the process of getting the students involved in publishing on this site?

Melissa:

So we start off with a presentation discussing what culture is and then bringing it to the student on what culture means to them. And then we discuss the things that we see in culture and everyday life. And then we dig into how culture affects us and our relationships and the unseen things that we see with culture.

Yasmeen:

Okay. So first there's like a, I mean, like a conversational session, right? That kind of warms them up to the entire topic. Okay. And so then what is the next step? I mean, I'm trying to also get just logistical ideas in case other educators might want to try to mimic something like this in their classroom.

Melissa:

Absolutely. So we have a discussion first on culture and we reflect on those things, and then I introduced to them, the cultural iceberg, which was created by Edward T. Hall, and it talks about the surface parts of culture, the things that we see, such as music, the arts. food, language, how we dress. So those are the things that the students are pretty familiar with within their culture, but the things that we're not familiar with, even as adults, are the things in the deep culture part. And those are things that are not seen and not tangible. Such as the religious beliefs, values that we have, traditions that we carry through with our families, gender roles, rules, etiquette, learning styles. So these are all things that we also dig deep into with the students. So they understand their thinking based on their cultural background.

Yasmeen:

And then in terms of the writing process,

Melissa:

and then the writing. Yep. And then the writing process so we use the cultural iceberg as a graphic organizer to maybe start like the pre-write. And then from there they take. Maybe two or three things they want to talk about in their writing. So maybe they want to talk about the music of their culture, or they want to talk about the different types of foods in their culture and then how it's also connected to their deep culture. So sometimes many families from different cultural backgrounds use food as a way of gathering, as a way of connecting to one another, as a way of showing love. So those are the ways where we explain to the students that, culture is it could be surface culture, which is important, but the deeper reason for, the students to, to experience this is usually because of family traditions and values.

Yasmeen:

Great, and now I am going to just draw your attention to this lovely handout that I received because ladies and gentlemen, I actually met Melissa during the New York State TESOL conference this past a couple of weeks ago here in the beginning of November. And so I participated in her in her lovely presentation slash bit of a workshop and she handed out this great, cultural storytelling outline, which, it starts off with, a greeting in a native language, and, talking about how to pronounce your name. So they're basically, sentence starters, To get them started with the writing portion.

Melissa:

Absolutely. To get them started for the writing process. Absolutely, and this also depends on the level of the student, what grade they're in. So for the younger grades, I like to focus more on the visuals, where students can create visuals and collect visuals of their, surface culture and deep culture, and then maybe label or have a sentence or two describing the visuals. And then from there on you, build on what their writing goals are depending on what, grade they are and all that. So it could be very diversified.

Yasmeen:

Okay, yeah, excellent, because that's typically a question that educators have, like, how can this be scaled, according to the level of the students that you're teaching. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. some of the sentence parts are like, okay, the 1st part of my culture that I want to share another part that is special to me is. Lastly, so it really scaffolds and leads them into, the content. Okay. So absolutely. and then, so you do this in your, do you go to schools Yes, so I've been doing

Melissa:

it. So I mostly have been doing it virtually, but now I'm starting to do it again in schools. and then it's so much better having that physical interaction with the students and really, helping guiding the teacher along and, having those one on one sessions with the students, helping them, along with their cultural stories.

Yasmeen:

Okay, and so let's say I would like for my students to experience some of this, amazing cultural storytelling. what would be the process or the steps

Melissa:

So the educator can reach out to me. We could discuss their goals and their student's goals in the classroom. What content areas they want to reach, and also it depends on the timeframe. The book that I published with one classroom in Ohio, it was definitely over a month's work working once or twice a week with the students. But I am flexible and I think every student's voice is different and authentic, and we want to make that, show in their work. Whatever the teacher's needs are, whatever the, student's needs are, we will create a program just for them, for students to, uh, express themselves and their culture authentically.

Yasmeen:

Okay, yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the book. Okay, because, during your presentation, you passed around a few. There were a couple of really lovely books featuring cultural student stories, really nice pictures, et cetera. So is there I mean, any kind of advice that you might be able to give to educators who might want to do something similar in terms of publishing a book that's showcasing their students' written work?

Melissa:

Yes. So what we use, there are many publishing companies out there that are student friendly. The one that we use and had a positive experience was it's called Student Treasures Publishing, and, and as you can see here, it's like a real book. It's hardcover. The students did their own illustrations and, it came out beautiful. This is one option. Um creating a book of the student stories, and I think that's something that they would treasure forever. and also, that's why I also created the online platform. So if the teacher doesn't decide to publish a book, the students can publish it on my website or the teacher create their own website and publish their student stories in that way. And what's wonderful of doing it online is that other students from other parts of the world can interact with their student and ask questions and go back and forth and or say,"Oh, I do something similar in my culture." So that's the whole idea of connecting it, through online so the interactions are real and the students can expand their communication with not just the students and the peers in the classroom, but appears from around the world. And I've learned that because I know writing is a tough subject to teach students because it's like pulling ideas out of them, and not every student is a writer, but when you focus on the student's identity and their interests, they will write all day long, or they will find ways, even if they're not a strong writer, depending, maybe if they're an EL student, they will find ways to express themselves because they want to share the parts of who they are. Even the quiet introverted students are so engaged in this program and it's just so rewarding and lovely to see at the end how confident they become about knowing who they are and how they want to share it with other students.

Yasmeen:

Okay, so, you know, definitely I would like to also address that this your this website, you know, it has beautiful pictures of students featuring their stories. And definitely I also want to talk about the articles from educators that are embracing this mission as well. I will just briefly dive into one of them called translanguaging like an artist. So I love how this starts off. It says,"Es cuando estoy leyendo," and then in parentheses, it says,"it's when I'm reading the book and soñando" in parentheses"dreaming of other places. Question for our multilingual friends. Have you ever felt that there is a word in one of your languages that just has the right feel to what you are trying to express, even if you're communicating in a different language? Perhaps your other languages just do not have the word with the exact connotation that you are looking for. Do you ever simply go back and forth between languages because that is your preferred means of communicating with different groups of people? This, friends is translanguaging, and I am here to applaud you for your language choices." Now, this actually was written by someone else that was at the NYS TESOL conference, actually the keynote speaker there, Dr. Denise Furlong, and I'm just wondering for educators who might feel strongly about this, mission and want to participate. What do they need to do to get, published on the site?

Melissa:

So they can connect with me and I am open to many themes that have to do with supporting all educators, all students, but mainly focusing on our ELs and ML students. And I think we need to break down the walls of the classroom and really connect with one another from all corners of the world and support each other in giving the best education to our students and we can't work in isolation. It will not benefit our students. So this is why I thought, like I said earlier, working with all these different global educators from around the world from India and from Ecuador, I was just so inspired by all the different tools and resources that they used to teach, I was like, why don't I add this educator voices to the platform and to inspire other teachers because we're all in this together and it's to strengthen our students and the generations before us to become loving and kind and empathetic, learners. So this is the reason why I also put this element of educator voices onto the platform.

Yasmeen:

Okay, and so I think that, sharing the ways that you can creatively connect to the students is definitely, an asset, right for all educators. and, on this idea of creativity, there was an article like a blog, that you participated in called"The Art and Science of Student Creativity," and it was on School of Thought, it was featuring, someone else featuring Dr. Jane Shore as well, and I really like what it said about creativity, so I'm going to share a little bit of that with our audience. So it says,"Creativity is one of those undeniably important skills, but it is hard to pin down and capture in ways that schools can describe. We celebrate its virtues, but holding it central to our work is something schools aren't known for being good at. When school is simply seen as a ticket to the future and not fuel for the present, anything overly creative and not explicitly tied to grades or degrees is seen as quote unquote extra. This is short sighted. There is an urgent need for creative exposure, boundary lifting, and the creation of more creative spaces for a wider swath of young people. By pushing against the unwritten rules of traditional school, we unlock new opportunities to act on what school could be." And, I think that this really captures the essence of this project that you have started, which is the kind of the epitome of creativity. You know, you showed just a moment ago the the drawings from the students, et cetera, that are in this book. This last part about pushing against the unwritten rules, right? How would you suggest that educators maybe start to push against these rules and really, foster a better value placed on these types of projects that are filled with really great creativity?

Melissa:

Yes, I have to applaud you for your research. You really dug into that creativity is my other love. First, it's the culture and creativity is also my other love. so I thank you for that. So basically I know an educator's job nowadays is very hard because they have all these standards to address and they have, they're on this time machine where they have to keep up with everything and get grades in. But I think if we spent time and just allocated some time for student creativity, even if it's on Fridays in the afternoon or, Mondays to start off the week. If we give those students time to really reflect on who they are and bring about parts of them that wouldn't necessarily come out through the content areas, because it's so structured, we will build on their creativity and, letting them explore the ways that they want to show how they want to learn or how they show what they understand. So I think just allocating those time periods just for creativity, for free exploration, for creative expressiveness, I think is a start to help with the routine and for the students to really voice who they are and how they want to show their learning.

Yasmeen:

Okay, I think that's a great idea, like setting aside just creativity time.

Melissa:

That's creativity time. And I know some schools that do it. I know some schools that do it on Fridays and the students select a topic that they want to explore more on and then they work on that project and they can present it the way they want to present it through visuals, through audio, through video, through photographs, whatever it is. And they have their voice that is shown authentically in the classroom, and there is no better engagement than that.

Yasmeen:

And it takes me back to what you said a few moments ago about, all, not all students are you know, writers are like, really, that's not the way that they would, let's say, choose to express themselves. So this provides better overall access. Okay. So another thing about the Cross Cultural Storytelling Project is SDG Goal 4. 7, which is education for sustainable development and global citizenship. So what is that exactly? So the idea for our audience is that by 2030, to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and nonviolence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development. What I would like to know from you is, the date says 2030, we're already in 2023. how close do you think we are to attaining this goal and what can we do to try to stay on track? So

Melissa:

this is, that's a tough question. I don't know how close we are to attaining this goal, but I do believe we are working toward it, and I think if we include programs like this, where we involve the students and involve their families and involve who they are and their culture and their creativity, I believe we will get, we will attain that goal and it just holds us to a higher standard, a global standard versus the smaller standards that we have in our schools. This is a worldwide standard that the UN has provided for us, and to me, it is my motivation to not just focus it in, New York or the United States, but to focus these goals globally. So I think we are getting there.

Yasmeen:

I would agree with you, I think that there's definitely been a stronger push for getting students' voices out there and, recognizing the diversity that they bring as an asset. So, it's been really great speaking with you and I'm sure a lot of, people that are listening would like to know more about how they can, see what's going on with this project. see what's going on with you and maybe some future projects that you have going on. So what is the best way for people to be able to reach out or to maybe do a little research and kind of feel around in terms of this project.

Melissa:

Absolutely. So I love connecting with people and educators from all over the world. So a lot of times we connect on Twitter. So my Twitter handle is at Melissa underscore Campesi. I'm also on Instagram where I do more of my creative, that's more of my creative outlet on Instagram, cause I've written another book about musical creativity. So, um, a lot of that inspiration is on Instagram, and so my Instagram account is at Melissa underscore Aurora. Underscore Campesi, and I'm also on LinkedIn. So if anybody wants to connect with me through there and I would love to expand on this project and connect with more educators that see the value in their students', cultural stories and how it will benefit them in the long run, as in their education.

Yasmeen:

Of course, I have a final question, which I ask all of my guests here on RBERNing questions. So, from your point of view, what burning question should today's educators consider in order to improve their service to the ELL and ML community?

Melissa:

The burning question I think I would have is,"What are my students' deep cultural elements?" So it's so easy to see the surface cultural elements because they're visible, they're tangible, but we as educators really don't know the deeper elements of a student's culture, and I think that really represents who they are and how they bring themselves to the world. So I think we as educators in the beginning of a school year when we get to know our students, if we could find ways like through this project to really connect with our students on that deeper level, I think it will make a world of difference in their educational journey.

Yasmeen:

Okay everybody, Melissa, Campesi. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today here on RBERNing questions. Thank you for tuning in to RBERNing Questions, produced by Mid-State RBERN at OCM BOCES. If you would like to learn more about today's guest or any of the resources we discussed, please visit Mid-State RBERN's webpage at ocmboces. org. That's o c m b o c e s dot org. Join us next time where we hope to answer more of your burning questions.