Stories that changed us forever

Ms. Kruse's students in 2011-2012 were learning English as a new language and wrote short non-fiction stories. This is a collection of stories about teenagers who moved to American. Each student chose an event in their life they wanted to share with others to tell about how that event changed them forever. Excerpts from the text: "After dinner, my brother went to his room to change his clothes, but he probably was looking at himself in the mirror. I was in the kitchen, helping my mother clean up when suddenly, our house started wavering. It was like our house was being swallowed by the earth. We were really scared. My mother grabbed my hand, and the both of us were trying to get out of the house, but the building started to really shake. My skin was burning with fear. The dishes were dancing on the shelves and falling on my mother. At that moment, I knew it was an EARTHQUAKE. My mother started yelling “Jesus, protect us!’’. My brother ran toward us wearing only his underwear. The three of us collapsed in a corner of the room and we yelled together ‘’Jesus protect us!’’. As soon as we finished the sentence, the EARTHQUAKE stopped. Our next door relatives came and helped us to get out of the house." Written by Darlie Firmin – born in Haiti- A second year English language learner I was in born in Ghana, which is in West Africa. I left my mom and her mother, my grandmother, when I was 5 years old. From that time I began a new life. My grandparents are the only parents I have ever known as parents, I grew up with them as parents. I never knew where my Mother was at while I was growing up. My Mother told my Pop’s parents to come and get me and take me to another country, Burkina Faso. All I know about my father is that he was living in New York for my entire childhood. My father left the country before I moved to Burkina Faso, he left in 1998. So I never got a chance to know my father. All I knew was what he looked like, I had a picture. After I left my Mother I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. Written by Adboul Zoure - born in Ghana - A fourth year English language learner “Dont worry” the black cars pass again but this time they stop and five black boys come out the car with a ak-47. Trison takes out a gun. Bruce drops on top of me I never saw Raquira, the gang starts throwing bullet on us. I was so scared I peed myself. I was crying and nervous, when everything stopped I was looking for Raquira and she was in a corner bleeding. Written by Shanikua Barrows - born in Panama- A third year English language learner The morning of the day I found out my mother had cancer was the last day of school. I should've felt happy but instead I felt as if something bad was going to happen. I thought to myself that maybe the bad feeling was that I was going to have an argument with someone. When I got to school the feeling went away. I had forgotten all about it. Written by Jackie Perez born in Puerto RIco The next morning I went to my house to see what really happened, and then when I saw my house I was really shocked. It was destroyed. After I saw my house I sat down face-to-face with my house thinking about how I was gonna get my clothes from under my house. Suddenly the earth started shaking again and I saw my house go down even more into the earth. Written by Emmanuelle Desmoures born in Haiti