Center for Arts-Inspired Learning works with students at Case Elementary to claim their own stories

 

 

“Youth in urban cities”

“Black children”

“Young women”

 

Carla Lyndale Carter, a filmmaker and Resident Teaching Artist with Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, entered these terms into a Google image search. As photos filtered across the screen, the diverse group of sixth- through eighth-grade students at Case Elementary discussed what they saw.

 

“There is so much media put in front of young people,” Carter said. “I want to teach them to analyze critically and pay attention to representation—pay attention to types of biases.”

 

Working with artists for 36 sessions, students will be challenged to look at how media portrays different groups, and to reflect on how they see themselves. “I love to read. I love sports. I love anime. But people don’t always get that when they see me,” one student noted while discussing the images.

 

For their first project, students combed through images in popular magazines. Working with artist Augusto Bordelois, they are remixing the visuals into drawings, cut-outs and sculptures to produce stop-motion animation, adding audio that speaks to how they want to be portrayed.

 

Upcoming sessions will look at social media persona to discuss how students define beauty and create a website with video portraits that highlight individual perspectives. Students will also make a group documentary on a topic of their choice.

 

“I want to empower the students to be creators of their own media vs. media that is being created for someone else’s agenda,” Carter added.

 

Special funding for this workshop is provided by The City of Cleveland’s Cable Television Minority Arts and Education Fund through the Cleveland Foundation.

 

To partner with Center for Arts-Inspired Learning on a project, visit arts-inspiredlearning.org.

 

 

Center for Arts Inspired Learning

13110 Shaker Square, C203

Cleveland, Ohio 44120

216.561.5005

arts-inspiredlearning.org