February 22 Meeting

We had an awesome meeting last Saturday! It was great to see everyone after such a long hiatus due to snow cancellations.

The project we will be working on for the remainder of the year is called #whatsyourstory. Students will be thinking about perspectives and will be writing stories, writing poetry, taking photographs, creating art, and creating multimedia presentations that reflect themselves and their neighborhoods. The project will culminate with students creating their own art gallery to showcase their work. We will also be creating a book with the organization Teach Twice!

We got started on our project this week by looking at Norman Rockwell's painting titled "The Problem We All Live With". Students wrote collaborative poems by finishing the sentence, "I want you to know..." and saying what they thought Ruby Bridges would want us to know about herself and the situation she was faced with.

"The Problem We All Live With" by Norman Rockwell

Next, students began reading the novel Diamond in the Desert by Kathryn Fitzmaurice and working on "Where I'm From" poems. After that, students went on a photography scavenger hunt to get them thinking about how to set up and compose shots. Students uploaded the photos to Instagram and added hashtags. Here are all the things they had to photograph.

We then ate pizza that was generously donated by Mellow Mushroom. Yum!

We ended by creating grid art using "The Problem We All Live With". Students were given a square from the painting, and were asked to recreate the square on a larger sheet of paper. We then put all the squares together and talked about how their perspectives and how perspectives can change when people work together.

Students, don't forget to take photos of meaningful things and places in your neighborhoods. Email the photos to lkdunnavant@gmail.com. We will see everyone at our next meeting on Saturday, March 15!