After returning from spring break, students had the opportunity to select three to five electives. Here is the full list of electives they had to choose from, and below a sample lesson from one of them.
Listening in Place
In the next five weeks, we will be engaging in a community-wide project called Listening in Place in partnership with the Vermont Folklife Center. We will be creating visual and audio archives: documenting our lives in this pandemic, recording the sounds of daily life, conducting interviews with the people we are sheltering with and making remote recordings of interviews with loved ones. We will create a digital or handmade primary source document of writing, pictures, and artifacts. In May we will come together for a virtual Story Circle to share our experience and bear witness to the experiences of others.
I will post new content on Mondays and Wednesdays under the “Classwork” tab. Please feel free to use this stream to share your ideas, questions, and inspirations! The first thing you will post is an audio introduction. Before we begin, listen to this Compassion Meditation. Then listen to the audio file: Orientation.
First Assignment
- Create an audio introduction and post it to the Classroom stream. Listen to this introduction to the first assignment. Here is my introduction: R.Hopkinson Introduction
Decide if you want to create a handmade or digital “portfolio.” This can take the form of a blog, a slideshow, or even a beautifully organized Google Folder. Please note that whatever you decide, you will still end up uploading audio files to our Listening in Place Classroom so that we can all share our work.
Your Portfolio
For this class, you will be creating a primary source portfolio. Your “portfolio” can be in the form of a blog, a slideshow, a digital folder, a diary, a journal, a scrapbook, or any other form that allows you to capture your life and the lives of people around you as we live through this global pandemic.
Primary Sources are immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic, from people who had a direct connection with it.
Primary sources can include:
• Texts of laws and other original documents
• Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did
• Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews – what the people involved said or wrote
• Original research
• Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.
Make a decision about what you will use and start to set up your portfolio. If electronic, you’ll want to find and familiarize yourself with the platform and format. If handmade, take some time to create a cover page with a title: Listening in Place. You may also draw or paste a picture into your portfolio. The goal is to create a portfolio in which you love to work, something that inspires you! Whatever you choose, spend some time making it your own.
Samples of students’ first assignments:
Student 1: Listening in Place: Introduction
Student 2: Listening in Place: Introduction
Learn more about our admissions process, and contact our admissions office if you have any questions.