A Pagoda

Bechtel Prize Judge Diana Khoi Nguyen selected Minjung (Michelle) Lee’s essay, “A Pagoda,” as the 2026 Bechtel Prize honorable mention. The Bechtel Prize is awarded for an essay describing a creative writing teaching experience, project, or activity that demonstrates innovation in creative writing instruction.

The Bechtel Prize is named for Louise Seaman Bechtel, who was an editor, author, collector of children’s books, and teacher. She was the first person to head a juvenile book department at an American publishing house. As such, she took children’s literature seriously, helped establish the field, and was a tireless advocate for the importance of literature in the lives of young people. This award honors her legacy. Learn more about the Bechtel Prize here.

The electricity had gone out twice since I arrived. The classroom was packed, resembling a garage. On the concrete floor, my students, ranging from second to fifth grade, sat cross-legged. Even younger siblings twisted amidst them, clung to sleeves. Eighteen mothers stood against the wall, their backs upright in concentration and pride. A few grandmothers sat along the sides, silent but vigilant. This dimness could last minutes or the rest of the day, so the sun glaring through open windows was our only reliable source of light. Near the doorway, a miniature pagoda, rock and chipped bark, balanced itself despite the steady breeze. In this space, we would begin our construction of words, laying the first stones for a new series of sentences.

To the weary yet vivacious crowd, I stood holding a picture book: The Grand Hotel of Feelings by Lydia Branković. Its cover showed an indigo sky scattered with stars, a red hotel with resplendent windows, and small anthropomorphic figures amongst petite cars, a snail, and a Pegasus. The surreal, dreamlike image alone quieted the room, a momentary escape from the border conflict minutes away and the underlying tension that rested over this community.

In this space, we would begin our construction of words, laying the first stones for a new series of sentences.

I began reading aloud in English, slowly, one sentence at a time, leaving space for the Khmer to arrive, each translated phrase another stone carefully set. “Welcome to the Grand Hotel of Feelings. . . . I am the manager of the hotel. I am here to help any feelings that come to stay.” Some students leaned forward, Poei being the first to do so, and then Srey. Somaly scooted her five-year-old brother up to one end of her lap and shushed him. Davit and Milia exchanged looks of confusion and curiosity. Lily placed the pencil down, no longer tapping its eraser end against her palm. Chea smoothed out her paper, as if a wrinkle stood in the way of her focusing. Villay and Thaily sat, trying not to squirm as I turned the pages.

As we continued on with the story, the hotel filled up with guests. The personified character Sadness flooded the bathroom. Peace was soft-spoken without complaints. Anxiety shape-shifted so often that you could not get a hold of it. Gratitude was easy to neglect because she never asks for anything. Each page depicted emotions in a scene, something the students could point to, look at, translate, and recognize in themselves.

When the narrator described Anger so loud it rattled the walls, Davit mumbled in his mother tongue, eyes fixed on the page, “Anger is like pkoar.”

He glanced up at me, “Teacher, what is the English word?” “Thunder,” he repeated after me.

“But thunder go away,” Milia noted. Her grammar was flawed, but we all understood her, a solid addition to our growing structure. Even the mothers did, one of them let out a chuckle.

In the book, the manager recognized that unresolved rage can metamorphose into other feelings such as worry, depression, and shame if left unaddressed. Therefore, instead of punishing or forcing Anger out, he listened and provided a safe space. “[I]n each Hotel there’s a manager just like me who will be expecting them waiting to hear what they have to say.”

The book proposed an unusual practice: no feeling guest is ever refused. It suggested the opposite of what many Cambodian mothers instruct their children in a place where survival often meant restraint, not to bottle up emotions in silence, but to recognize them, name them, and allow oneself a moment of thought and sentiment. I chose not to reiterate the message, instead allowing the listeners to piece the story together themselves. The children translated for one another, a collective act to compose their own tiers of understanding where every feeling had a place.

Like many educators, I had arrived at this classroom with the standard tools, including lesson objectives, learning materials, and writing utensils. Nevertheless, the moment I entered this community, it became obvious that the problem would not be whether the students could spell or conjugate verbs properly. The challenge would be changing their viewpoint: Is writing worth doing in the first place? Could they see the value in their own stones, their own words?

Many children did not recognize themselves as “writers.” They thought of themselves as merely recipients of English, who needed to memorize, recite, repeat, and follow until they got the “correct” answer. In their perspective, writing belonged to others, namely the privileged, like people whose lives do not stop due to a power outage.

Outside these walls, life could change quickly due to politics, accidents, and someone else’s decision. Writing could become the space where they could wholly decide for themselves.

Without security and stability, education seems a luxury, a non-essential matter. Writing can feel secondary to the everyday reminders of what is lacking such as food and safety. It was not that these students had no interest in school. However, what kind of learning takes place when the sense of fear and urgency is never-ending, even in the classroom? Outside these walls, life could change quickly due to politics, accidents, and someone else’s decision. Writing could become the space where they could wholly decide for themselves.

And yet the contradiction was clear: Cambodian students were surrounded by stories. Their stories existed in oral traditions. Families passed down narratives and lived experiences through memory, Khmer conversation, and melodies from elders to children. Regardless, those tales were seldom considered “literature” and even less frequently committed to print. It was not a community that lacked creativity. It could not afford to treat storytelling as something worthy of ink. They possessed the stones but had been given no blueprint, no sacred space in which to stack them.

I could not simply enforce an external understanding of English composition. That would repeat a familiar historical pattern, outsiders arriving with the “right” way. In Cambodia, where scars of a colonial past persist, the classroom required respect and willingness to create a classroom where storytelling, already alive in their oral tradition, could be acknowledged, appreciated, and used to create their own narrative. Writing could be a means to explore oneself, not just completing schoolwork.

English would not replace Khmer. This lingua franca would become a bridge. If a bridge is well built, it nurtures both ends. Therefore, the first rule of our class was that the students must write by and for themselves. For writing to make a difference and continue long-term, it had to be driven by self-interest, motivation, and curiosity. They had to first believe they had a voice worth writing about. They had to trust that their pagoda was worth building.

As I placed the 36 by 48 inch poster and colored pencils down on the floor, “Now,” I said, in Khmer and again in English, so that they could hear me over a passing motorbike, “we write.” We began with neither essays nor perfect paragraphs, instead with something simpler: a Needs Inventory and a Feelings Inventory. Needs met, needs unmet, and feelings that arrive when you are safe, when you are hungry, when you are tense, and when you are waiting were all scribbled out on this paper: friendship, jittery, enthusiastic, hesitant, optimistic, discouraged, affectionate, and more. These words were the foundation.

In our classroom and in their writing, at least, they would be safe.

It was lists like these that equipped the students with words to think with. With these new tools, they were freer to express their emotions, even experiment with identity and create personal narratives in English. In our classroom and in their writing, at least, they would be safe. They could be at the core. Their voice could matter. Before long, they were inventing their own language, metaphors and similes that caught me off guard with their creativity and accuracy.

Hungry was not “hungry.” Hungry was “my stomach like a drum.” Thaily looked up after jotting this down, waiting for me to correct her. I did not. “What kind of drum?” I simply asked. Her eyes squinted and eventually exclaimed, “Big! Like . . . beating like a temple drum.” She successfully voiced her feelings on her own.

“My mom,” Sreynoch wrote in Khmer, “Safe when hugging my mom.” We then formulated the English phrase together. Meanwhile, the humid heat had its own persona, according to Villay, not as weather but a physical presence that clings on and refuses to relent. “It sits on my skin.” They were not simply practicing a new language. They were learning how to convey experiences through imagery.

Then we drew identity trees. The trunk began with “I am,” and branches grew quickly. Rotha would write about her village roads, the nearby Siem Reap river, and her grandmother, who named all the plants. Rika wrote about a memory of her favorite dish, nom banh chok, and what she loved most about it, including the way it smelled, tasted, looked, as well as the hands working to make it and the bowls passed around. They all wrote what they aspire to achieve: “I want to become someone who helps my family.” “I want to fly. A pilot!” “I want to speak perfect English.”

These children, who often assumed that their identity was already limited or fixed, began visualizing their identity as something that can be explored and expanded endlessly. Moreover, this exercise reversed their use of English. Students who were used to being assessed by and for this unfamiliar language began using it to reflect on themselves. The youth gradually realized that their lives were rich in literary material. They were learning to write them in their own words.

Our main writing task of that day was a letter, a gift. They were asked to compose letters to their mothers in a narrative style, using complete sentences. The prompt began, “Dear Mother, how are you feeling today?” From there, it went to: what do you need, what do you love, what are some childhood stories, what is difficult, what do you hope for me, and more. Before they began, we revised a sentence together to practice using rhetorical devices and writing more vividly, learning to notice and appreciate the small details in everyday life. “My mom works hard” became “My mom is outside before the sky ignites, and her hands smell like wood fire and kroeung spice.”

The mothers and grandmothers were beside the students as they wrote. In addition to self-exploration, writing became a collective activity. Their writing was validated by the very people whose stories these children had inherited. The classroom became truly intergenerational. Somaly, writing a sentence, could glance up to see her mother watching with a smile. Poei whispered, “Teachee, ‘excellence’?” and his grandmother leaned down, murmuring the Khmer word into his ear. In a society where literacy can feel removed from life, the youth and heads of families brought it back into their lives. Their walls strengthened by the voices of mothers and grandmothers.

Each chosen word was another stone, fitted with greater care.

When it was time to share, the children read aloud to each other and conducted peer reviews, correcting each other’s English in a collaborative manner. “Read mine first,” Lisa said, then swallowed. “Okay. Dear Mother. . . .” She tripped over her opening, caught herself, and continued. Miliear cradled her paper with both arms. “If I make a mistake, it’s OK?” she whispered. “It’s OK,” Somaly replied immediately, before I could offer words of encouragement. “I change this sentence three times, Teacher. Listen.” He read a line about forgetfulness and exhilaration living together. “Teacher,” Kunthea interrupted, tapping with the green tip of her pencil, “Is there no better word?” They began perceiving diction as something they could own and improve. In an environment where self-expression and confidence might otherwise appear shallow and even discouraged, it mattered that sharing felt safe, and the letter marked the start of establishing a culture of writing that could outlast my classes. Each chosen word was another stone, fitted with greater care.

Writing rapidly became routine. Some students began keeping daily journals. Others asked for thought-provoking prompts. Several joined me to transform the stories told at home into writing. English was no longer just a foreign language. We advanced from The Grand Hotel of Feelings and into Cambodian cultural texts, transcribing their folktales like “Phnom Pros and Phnom Srei” in multiple languages, with the goal in mind of having a book of them made up and published.

This process taught students to write about their own culture. They learned to tell stories by taking local myths and memories grounded with place and sensory details and retelling them in engaging scenes. They discovered something important: stories do not become valuable because they are in the lingua franca of English. They are valuable already. Like Khmer, English is another form of expression. They were adorning their stories with the intricate markings of their heritage.

For the following weeks, the ceiling light flickered and then went dark again. Outside, the world remained unpredictable. Regardless, undeterred, my students continued to read aloud in Khmer and English together. They now filled the blank pages with their own guests, naming emotions and thoughts we had not yet specified, practicing the valiant act of navigating their complex inner and external world on paper, something no test could evaluate.

I recalled the red hotel with its luminous entrance. In every hotel, the manager listens.

In every classroom, the teacher listens.

In every student, there is already a story waiting to be checked in.

In a place that has long carried stories by voice, through children, mothers, and grandmothers, we began to write. The class did not wait for everything to be perfect. They did not wait for reliable electricity or a stable world. They wrote anyway, raising tier by tier, because they have stories to tell about their lives, outlook, and heritage. For once, no one hurried them along.

Featured photo by Kim Chan on Unsplash.