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| The Neighborhood Story Project is a nonprofit organization in partnership with the University of New Orleans. |
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ABOUT THE PROGRAM Creative Nonfiction Seminar Fall 2007Paul Chan & the Classical Theatre of Harlem Visit John Mac Exchange with the Mowanjum Youth Project in Derby, Western Australia Before the Storm: 5 Books About New Orleans, Written by High School Students at John McDonogh |
BOOK MAKING PROGRAM AT JOHN MCDONOGH SENIOR HIGH The Neighborhood Story Project's pedagogy is based on a critical literacy approach to reading and writing. We believe in pushing our students towards fluent literacy, while also encouraging them to see literacy as a means for reading the world, building their own creative projects, and becoming agents of change. Educational research has shown that when the culture(s) of our students are integrated into the classroom, their motivation and engagement in the learning process increases dramatically. John McDonogh, as measured under the No Child Left Behind Testing Mandate, has demonstrated less than 20% proficiency in English and math skills and has been given a failing grade by the Louisiana State Board of Education. These problems are not in isolation, but rather are part of the profile of our community — 41% of adults in the Seventh Ward, for example, have not completed a high school education. Although many of our students come from communities that have low levels of literacy, there are other resources, knowledge, and skills that are important to respect and build on. STORY CIRCLES The Neighborhood Story Project follows the story circle method developed by John O'Neal, civil rights worker and founder of Junebug Productions, to create a sense of community in the classroom and begin to help students locate stories within themselves. As O'Neal says, "When we tell stories we are sharing with each other how we put things together. When we share stories we share whole parts of ourselves." Students develop their voices as storytellers and learn how to be good listeners. Over time, some of the stories move into written pieces. WRITING WORKSHOPS As students begin to write stories for their books, their ideas and rough drafts go through writing workshops with the entire class. Each student reads their piece and receives extensive feedback from the teachers and their classmates. Students are often asked to "talk through" a part of their story that isn't well developed or to reflect on how a particular experience may have affected them. They examine what makes certain passages effective, where they may have lost focus, and how to enrich their images, characters, and dialogue. They also discuss fears they may have about writing about certain topics. FIELDWORK Fieldwork helps students tap into the prior knowledge that they bring to the project and connect it to new information they will learn in their communities and in the classroom. Students learn how to conduct participant/observation research and in-depth interviews. They acquire a number of skills that increase visual (community mapping and photography), cultural (learning more about their own and other cultures, being able to understand and appreciate cross-cultural communication), and written (fieldnotes, transcriptions, editing skills) literacy. In the process, their writing becomes more nuanced, their character development is enriched, and their sense of place is expanded. Our hope is that students willl develop what C. Wright Mills calls a sociological imagination: They begin to see the connections between their personal biographies and larger histories, private problems and public issues. They learn that in every history there is something general, something someone else can connect to and find truth. |
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