Graffiti Letters by Students Inspire Others

Excerpts from letters written by sixth-graders about graffiti at Rosemead’s Savannah Elementary School (Times Dec. 6, 1992) inspired sophomore English teacher Karen Blumenfeld to propose an assignment in argumentative writing to her students at Ganesha High School in Pomona.

Their views on graffiti, ranging from admiration to fear to disgust to resignation, came in a deluge of 88 letters. “Thank you for ‘Children React to Graffiti Problem’--it led me to an exciting assignment in which nearly all students got involved. This is a real accomplishment,” Blumenfeld wrote.

The majority of the writers harshly disapproved of graffiti and related gang violence, but some looked at the problem from the perspective of the tagger, reaching a different conclusion. Following are excerpts, with the original spelling and grammar:

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The problem is that the people doing it is not concern about the school. Some of them do it in their own school. They should at least do it in another school. It doesn’t look bad well it does because some of it you can barely understand it. Some of it looks like a baby wrote it. They should at least do it readable.

GABRIELA BERNABE