Young Authors Draw From Past to Face Future : Education: Some at the school are homeless, others immigrants. A project that has them penning their memoirs is helping build self-esteem.

Their short life histories are diverse: some have bounced from emergency shelters to cheap hotels or motels; for others, “home” is Trinidad, Thailand or Texas. Some now live in Venice; others are bused in from Hollywood.

But the 300 children of Venice’s Coeur D’Alene Avenue Elementary School--where one-fourth of the students are homeless and another fourth are recent immigrants--all have stories to tell.

Some shared those stories last week at a celebration of their “This Is Your Life” project, in which they are writing their “memoirs.” Helping is a writing-to-read laboratory donated by the Riordan Foundation and banks of computers provided by a $150,000 grant from the IBM California Education Partnership.

“You can imagine what these self-histories do to boost their self-esteem and sense of identity,” said Principal Beth Ojena. “They are discovering that they are somebodies who really matter.”

She said the autobiographies reveal that homeless children have “ideals, traditions and thoughts just like everybody else,” despite the instability, poverty and language problems that often mar their lives.

Traditional school lessons in history, geography, sociology and political science can be painlessly woven into the life stories, Ojena said.

The memoirs will be printed, bound, catalogued and placed in the school library.

The event had been billed by the Los Angeles Unified School District and IBM as a showcase for the self-histories of homeless children, and the media descended en masse in anticipation of gut-wrenching stories.

But no homeless children were featured at the assembly, which was held outdoors in the school courtyard.

Instead, one youngster informed the surprised audience that her father was vice-president of a construction company and she had eight animals at home, another described a distinctly middle-class upbringing with both parents and two younger brothers. A third, however, began by telling of her joy at winning a computer for having shown the “most improved” writing skills, then spoke sadly about her mother’s losing her job at the Santa Monica Pier.

School officials explained that children who come from nearby shelters often attend Coeur d’Alene only for a short time, and that the newest arrivals are still trying to settle in and learn computer basics.

The children who did climb atop a makeshift platform to read what they had written mirrored Los Angeles’ cultural diversity:

Yohance, the 9-year-old son of a Trinidad musician, relived early memories of playing conga drums and guitar and getting to jam with a professional group, while Jose, 10, disclosed that he is a Sagittarius who likes “Treasure Island, “The Wind in the Willows” and C. S. Lewis. Others emphasized their family heritage in Honduras or Thailand.

After the formal ceremony, visitors wandered through the classrooms where they could read an energetic, if misspelled, story by Jason, a 6-year-old Korean boy who fantasized about “wuns upon Time ago” when “a ugle wich mak a poshun” that endangered “the priset” and required intervention by “the wiser.”

Several homeless 7-year-olds just beginning to use the computer also turned in short but charming stories--about a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm, dancers, a family of kittens.

In a fifth-grade class, regular instruction continued in the front of the room while groups of students gathered around a bank of computers at the rear to type in stories they had written, illustrating them with bright computer graphics.

They worked on their own, quietly and with obvious enthusiasm.

As a bevy of computer executives and admen beamed, teachers praised the program for having sparked the youngsters’ interest not only in writing but in learning and participating in other classroom activities as well.

Eugene McAdoo, an elementary school superintendent, praised the children’s efforts. “You are on the cutting edge of new technology in education,” he said. “Congratulations.”