At this time last year, Jacqui LeFrance’s grade 4 English Language Learner students at Center Pepin School in Easthampton were hard at work coming up with questions to ask their neighbor, Ms. Casagrande and her family. They were engaged in writing interview questions as part of a larger schoolwide and yearlong history project since they would be moving to a brand new building, Mountain View School, the following fall. They wanted to record important school and town history before the buildings were abandoned and the sounds of children playing at recess no longer animated the downtown.

Jacqui LaFrance has been working as an elementary English language teacher for over 13 years in high and low incidence English Language districts in Western Massachusetts. She is currently working as a program assistant and English language specialist for the EL Collaborations Project which is funded by the Library of Congress’s Emerging America program in association with the Massachusetts Council for Social Studies and the Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton.

You can read more about how this project evolved at the Daily Hampshire Gazette.