Expressive Writing on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, March/April 2019 Issue

By Lex Talamo

I moved to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a naïve 22-year-old teacher in 2009, with high hopes and big plans to instill my love of writing in my 80 incoming middle school students.

My principal informed me there was no formal writing curriculum—I would have to create one from scratch.

I quickly ditched the idea of throwing together anything from the materials in the two creaky roller carts in my classroom: a class set of dog-eared red Merriam Webster dictionaries and an 80-year-old set of Houghton Mifflin grammar books, so scarred with gang signs and ink as to be illegible.

I paid out-of-pocket for class sets of novels, drafted long term plans, pirated resources from the lethargic internet connection. Then, I eagerly awaited my first batch of students, who I quickly learned had their own ideas about what would happen in my classroom.

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Lex Talamo graduated with a Master’s Degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. She has also taught middle and high school writing.

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Lex Talamo
Lex Talamo
Lex Talamo graduated with a Master’s Degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. She has also taught middle and high school writing.

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