COMMUNITY STORIES PROJECT
Community Stories is an ongoing project sponsored by Art Junction that invites teachers and students to research the visual, oral, and written records of their own communities for stories and images to share with others. The goal of this project is to learn about each other, from each other, across geographical, political, cultural, linguistic, or other borders. Sharing stories and images in this space creates opportunities for comparisons; as we teach each other about ourselves, we gain new insights into the differences and the commonalities among human communities.
Participants in this project are encouraged to identify and investigate global forces, noteworthy individuals, important events, cultural influences, and other factors that have shaped or defined their local communities in the past or the present. From the insights gained through this research process, participants can create works of art, writings, Web sites, zines, artist books, digital videos, podcasts, photographic essays, or other creative expressions which communicate stories of their community.
Once projects are completed, teachers are encouraged to submit visual (photographs or video) and written documentation of their students' learning and accomplishments to this site for dissemination. Depending on the nature of the work, we will either link to it (i.e., if it is displayed elsewhere on the Web) or display it in our online gallery.
AGE GROUP
Open to all ages.
MEDIA
Open to all media including drawing, painting, collage, bookmaking, sculpture, murals, mosaics, photography, digital imagery, multimedia presentations, and website design. Limited only by the teacher's and students' imaginations.
CURRICULUM AREAS
Visual Arts, Social Studies, Geography, Cultural Studies, Civics.
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
This will vary from class to class, school to school. Student involvement in the decision-making process is encouraged as it promotes ownership of the project and it likely to generate more enthusiasm for completing the project. While responses from individual students under the guidance of their teacher will be accepted, collaborative efforts involving small groups or even whole classes are encouraged.
If you plan to display student art work on this Web site at the completion of your project, you need to have completed parental permission forms on file for each of your students whose work will be displayed. You may use your school's Internet permission forms, if such forms exist. Otherwise, download the parental permission form for displaying student work that is available on this site.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Teachers interested in discussing this project with other teachers are encouraged to use the Community Stories discussion folder. Contact Craig Roland to arrange to have your students' work displayed on this site.
SUBMITTING STUDENT WORK
There are several ways to submit visual documentation of student work for display on this website, depending upon the nature of the work:
- If the work is flat and can fit on a flatbed scanner, scan the work at 72 dpi/ppi and save it as a JPEG file. If you have a image-processing program like Adobe Photoshop, please crop each image to its edges and reduce the size of the image to no larger than 400 x 500 pixels (approximately 5 by 4 inches or 30 by 40 cm.) Resave the image as a jpg file (e.g., picture1.jpg). These images can then be submitted online as e-mail attachments.
- If the work is too large to scan (e.g., a mural) or if it is three-dimensional, then take digital photographs of the work if possible. These images can then be submitted as e-mail attachments.
- If the work is a digital video that you want to make available through this site, contact Craig Roland for more information.
- If the work is a student-produced Web site that is stored on a school's web server, then submit the URL (web address) to Craig Roland. A link to your school site will be made from the Community Stories page.
In addition to visual documentation, please submit a one-page written description of your project that includes its goal(s), a list of collaborating teachers or other partners, a brief summary of what students learned in the project, and any additional information about the project that you feel is relevant.
ONLINE RESOURCES
A list of links to related websites is available to support classroom projects. Before using any of these sites in the classroom, it is recommended that teachers review the content of the sites to ensure that they are appropriate for their students to visit.
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?
Direct any comments or questions regarding these pages or the project itself, contact Craig Roland.
