Sharing our Work with the Community

Our project is culminating in the form of a folk life center where select work from students, teachers, and community members will be recorded, showcased, and housed. In so doing we are hoping to help students bring their stories to a wider audience and to see that writing is not something you do for a grade or a score, but instead to share a piece of who you are as a way to connect and inform. The folk life center is being designed to include stories in a variety of different media formats. There will be a cork-board where standard paper and pencil writing will be on display, but will also include a space for iPads so that we can showcase community members stories that have been voice or video recorded. These iPads will be housed in a display case that can be opened in order to have students, parents, and staff record their stories for the display. It is also designed so that members of the school community can interact with the work. There are plans for a blackboard space that surrounds the work on display where members of the school community will be able to leave comments about work in the folk life center.

We are currently in the process of building a new school site and so the folk life center is designed to move into the new space. Presently it will be built in one of the hallways in our current building, but will be mobile enough so that it can be disassemble and reassemble in whatever public space will work for our new school building. We look forward to having students and community members archive their work in this evolving space.