Last week, we went to the Brigham and Women's hospital. When we got there, we saw an exposition about the AIDS quilt.

When I saw the quilt, there were names of people who had died of AIDS. The names and messages were made by family members in memory of their loved ones. I felt motivated to see the message the family members of AIDS loved ones put in the quilt. What I realized is that all the victims of this deadly virus had a different personality like any other person.

The message that gave me the most impression was a message that a mother did. It was a painting of a branch of flowers. The symbolism in this painting was that there was one flower missing, and that represented the victim.

What I learned was to inform people better and educate them about this virus.

I also learned how not to discriminate against people with AIDS and how to help them.

I think that the AIDS quilt is an interesting event and many people should have to see it because in this way people will think about AIDS. I felt very sad when I saw the parents dealing with many things from their children who died of AIDS; especially the mothers how they shared some memories of their sons and daughters. In those moments, I thought if this happened to me I don 't know how I could talk to people without crying. I think that AIDS is a strong subject that many people are scared to talk about but it is a reality.

People should know about this terrible disease especially young men and women who don't pay attention when people who know about it talk to them.

I learned a lot of things about AIDS. I saw many activities on the quilt. The quilt was made of many pieces. It was made by mothers of those people who died. The mothers explained to us the reason why they made the AIDS quilt for them.

I felt depressed at the time when I saw the lady who helped people how they can learn about AIDS.

I think this is a good point for people to learn more about AIDS because people need to prevent AIDS. Some people don't pay attention to this problem because they think it's not important to take care of ourselves.

My advice for everybody -- don't be afraid about it. You should ask somebody if you need some help.

Last Thursday we had a field trip to see the AIDS quilt. When we went to the hospital we saw the AIDS quilt. The quilt was made about many people who got AIDS and died. The quilt lets people remember them.

I felt sad because their life was short. Some of them were children. I hope someone can make medicine to cure AIDS. That will be great.

I learned that preventing AIDS is important so I think we need to be careful in our lives if we do anything. We need to think about it.

I saw a quilt about people who died of AIDS. I spoke with two mothers whose sons died. Steve's mother made a beautiful quilt about her son and Tommy's mother made the quilt with some photos of her son when he was different ages. I liked their quilt pieces very much

I felt sad because I had a similar experience with my father. He died with HIV four years ago.

I learned it's very sad, but it is very important that we get education about AIDS.

When our teacher, Lee, took us to see the AIDS quilt I thought it was good idea because I only knew about it on T.V. The difference is so big between the T.V. and real life.

I felt sad because I saw each square made by the family or friends because each square reflects the pain and love that they felt and feel for that special person.

The epidemic today is spreading everywhere and I feel that I need to learn more about it.

I'm scared that my family and young people in general may get AIDS.

I don't know what will happen in the future but now, I hope all people learn more about how to prevent HIV and AIDS.

We're proud to present to you the following skits about HIV/AIDS. We chose to write these stories because a lot of people don't know about this disease. Some people don't believe AIDS is real and many people are scared of HIV/AIDS.

We think people should learn about HIV/AIDS because this knowledge could save their life!

1. How did Karen get HIV?

2. How did Karen feel when the doctor told her that she was H IV+?

3 What things do Maria and Jenny do to help Karen?

4. Why is Maria worried about living with Karen?

5. Where can Maria, Jenny and Karen get help?

6. Why does Maria want to avoid Karen?

7. Why did Maria think that Karen had sex with a man?

8. Did Karen use drugs?

9. How did Karen feel when she returned home from the hospital?

10. When did Karen find out that she was HIV+?

11. How did Karen's roommates feel when they heard that she is HIV+?

12. Do you think that Maria wants to help Karen? Why or why not?

13. Why did Karen take the HIV test?

14. What should Karen do to help herself live longer?

15. What do you think about HIV?

16. If you have a friend who is HIV+, what do you do?

Characters:  John, a boy; Patricia, his sister; Mary, their mother; and Peter, their father

1. What happened to Patricia's friend?

2. Who is HIV positive?

3. What was John's attitude at the end of the story?

4. Do you think Patricia will avoid her friend because she has HIV/AIDS?

5. What do you do if you have a friend with HIV/AIDS?

6. Why do you think it's important for parents to talk with their teenagers?

1. Where did Ann and Mary meet?

2. Why didn't Mary get married?

3. Why did Mary want to take the HIV test?

4. What is the name of the HIV test?

5. Where could Mary get information about HIV?

6. Why is it Important to know about safe sex?

7. How do you practice safe sex completely to protect your life?

8. What do you think about this story?

1. Why is it important to talk to kids about AIDS?

2. Should parents tell their little kids everything about AIDS?

3. Is it good for little kids to learn about sex and drugs?

4. Can little kids have friends infected with the HIV virus?

5 Can parents with AIDS take care of their children?

This collection of writings about HIV/AIDS was produced by the students in my Intermediate ESL class in the Adult Learning Program at the Jamaica Plain Community Center in Jamaica Plain, MA.

HIV/AIDS is a serious health problem in our neighborhoods and a serious health concern for all of us. The students in my class were very vocal about wanting to learn more about this disease. I found out about a display of the AIDS quilt at Brigham and Women's Hospital from an HIV/AIDS educator at our local health clinic and organized a field trip to this event. The stories about this field trip speak to the power of this event for all of us who went. This field trip was the starting point of our exploration of HIV/AIDS.

Our exploration of HIV/AIDS included many activities. Fortunately the design of our health grant allowed time to plan, preview and discuss ideas among the ESL teachers with our student liaisons in our weekly health team meetings. We previewed materials from the HIV/AIDS Resource Kit developed by Andy Nash and Laurie Copan which was available from the Adult Literacy Resource Institute, in Boston.  It was a rich supply of materials and ideas for our classroom. Also it was an opportunity to talk about what we knew about HIV/AIDS and what our concerns were in the classroom. This kind of planning and discussion time is invaluable I believe when approaching a weighty topic such as HIV/AIDS.

In my intermediate class, we generated questions we had about this disease , watched movies, listened to recordings, looked at posters and educational brochures . Another great resource was the pamphlet put out by TESOL called Atlanta AIDS Education Education Special Issue. It is simple and straightforward. Both our basic and intermediate ESL students found this pamphlet very accessible and informative.

I encouraged students to look for advertisements about HIV/AIDS prevention on the train, on TV and in their neighborhoods. Students started to bring me copies of brochures that they picked up at their clinics and copies of articles about HIV/AIDS that they read in the newspaper.

I invited a local HIV/AIDS educator to come and talk to my class. I sent her the list of questions that my students had generated as a way to give the educator a sense of what was on our minds. One of my students had also recently trained as an HIV/AIDS Health Educator at a local clinic and she presented an educational workshop in Spanish to the basic ESL class. We found that first language presentations on this material was important not only to ensure comprehension but just as importantly to ensure that students would be able to ask whatever questions they had on their minds without struggling with the language.

As a culmination to all this work, the students prepared skits on topics that concerned them about HIV/AIDS. Two of the skits are on parents communicating with their children about HIV/AIDS. Most of my students are parents and they were very concerned about this responsibility.  (A good background reading about talking with children about HIV/AIDS was a chapter in AIDS , a book from the FYI series available from New Reader's Press.) One of the students had a friend with AIDS and she had shared how she felt nervous hugging her friend. By the end of our exploration of HIV/AIDS, she felt comfortable touching this person. She was a writer/participant in the "Welcome Home" skit. The students learned a lot of facts about HIV/AIDS and they became comfortable talking about it. It is interesting to me because their skits all demonstrate situations in which vital health information is being communicated in order to help someone make healthier choices.

I helped the students organize their ideas for their skits by brainstorming about the characters, the problem and the messages that they wanted to have in their skits. We listened to "I've Got AIDS" on the Salt N'Pepa tape, Very Necessary.  This is a skit between a young woman and her boyfriend about AIDS. It's powerful. It's a challenging listening exercise and an example of an educational skit developed for a young adult audience.

Also I gave them some guidelines. Their skits had to reflect accurate information about HIV/AIDS, be grammatically correct, and the use of idioms was encouraged. I gave them time in class to write, practice and make group decisions about their skits. I worked with each group on their presentation and pronunciation. Each group decided on props that they would need.

Developing skits can be a long process; however, feedback from my students convinces me of the many values of this kind of activity.

We invited other students in the school to our skits and we had an Educational HIV/AIDS Skit Party that included the presentation of the skits as well as distribution of educational health brochures that we collected from the local clinic. Also the student who was an HIV/AIDS educator passed out condoms and buttons. The finale was a singing with actors and audience of the song " That's What Friends Are For" , a lovely song about friendship and caring that is often sung at the end of the AIDS Walk in Boston. It was a dynamic presentation. I acted as the videotaper and I' m happy to say that in our class that tape is on the best seller list ! It has been borrowed by every student and shown to every family.

Last updated May 30, 1998 by David J. Rosen