M.A.T. Graduate Recognized for Work With Spanish-Speaking Students

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Jessica Fay Sliger, second from right, was joined by her family when she won a Lideres de Corazón award from the nation's largest Latino organization for business professionals and students. From left are her brother, Eric Fay, her mother, Mia Fay, and her father, Jack Fay.

Jessica Fay Sliger, a University of Arkansas graduate, has been honored several times this year for her work helping speakers of Spanish gain literacy skills in both Spanish and English.

Sliger earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from the College of Education and Health Professions in 2008 and began teaching at Rogers High School that year. She will travel to two national conferences this fall to present information on a poetry unit with her former professor, Freddie Bowles.

Sliger's work drew the attention of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting, the nation's largest Latino association for business professionals and students. In September, Sliger was awarded the Hèroes de Corazón Award given in primary and secondary education. The award award honors educators whose guidance, influence, patience and teaching is prevalent within the Hispanic and Latino community, according to the association's website. The recipient is recognized for focusing on the importance of education, mentoring and advancement within the Hispanic and Latino community.

Sliger was in the first group of students Bowles, an assistant professor of foreign language education, taught when Bowles joined the faculty in 2007. Sliger earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies in 2007. She was a Silas Hunt Distinguished Scholar at the University of Arkansas.

Sliger and Bowles will attend the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages conference in Denver later this month. This is the first time the association's special-interest group on teacher development has awarded two travel grants, and Sliger received one of them, as well as one of three travel grants awarded by the special-interest group on Spanish for native speakers.

Sliger and Bowles created a Spanish language poetry slam two years ago at Rogers High School with funding awarded by the Arkansas Humanities Council through a Raising Education and Achievement in the Humanities grant. The poetry project aims to engage and motivate students whose native language is Spanish while increasing their literacy skills and promoting retention and graduation. Sliger also used the event to help students prepare resumes to encourage them to prepare for long-term goals of employment and higher education.

"The most exciting result of the poetry slam unit is that it gets kids in tune with their potential," Sliger said. "We start having conversations about how participating in events such as the poetry slam can act as boosters for their college applications. Kids who never showed an interest in going to college have now starting building a resume for scholarship opportunities saying that they now think of themselves as writers. This exposure to aesthetic literacy has impressed upon them the need to continue to express themselves as writers. Though the poetry slam has ended, the writing of poetry hasn't. Frequently, I find on my desk their little scribblings of poems on napkins, sticky notes and crumpled papers from their pockets. They email and text me verses that they have written. They get it now! Writing never stops."

Sliger, of Joplin, Mo., began bringing Spanish-speaking high school students to the University of Arkansas campus when she was doing her student-teaching internship in the Springdale School District. She has continued to bring groups to campus to increase their awareness and interest in going to college.

The poetry slam held in the high school auditorium is the culminating event of a month-long unit. Work by several of last year's students was published in two state journals, and one of the students received a state award at the Arkansas Curriculum Conference earlier this month.

"In my Spanish for Native Spanish Speakers class, I have kids on all levels of the literacy spectrum," Sliger said. "The illiterate ones benefited from starting out with the formulaic poems like the haiku and the diamond poems. They allowed these children to take risks with their poetry in a safe, comfortable setting. The more advanced students thrived with writing free verse poems. Many of them enjoyed the challenge of writing a poem in two voices. We learned about the academic usage of code-switching to express their dual language and dual cultural experiences."

Sliger and Bowles will also present information about the poetry project in February at the annual conference of the Association of Teacher Educators in San Antonio.

"It fulfilled me to do a poetry unit with my students because I got to see the kids shine as they received positions of esteem in our school," Sliger said. "Watching those kids on stage as their bared their souls is something that I will never forget. My grandmother, Maria Carmen Soler, was the poet laureate of Colombia under the name Ana Colombia. She inspired me to write poetry as a little girl, and I wanted to share that love of this written and oral tradition with my students."

Sliger's previous awards include the Arkansas New Teacher of Promise Award sponsored by the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association in 2010 and the Best New Foreign Language Teacher Award given by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese in 2009.