Music and Mentoring

A Digial Wish award will enable us to introduce desperately needed technology to our unique artist-in-residence program. A technology grant will allow our school to incorporate state of the art technology while creating a learning experience that will last a lifetime.

The current technology available to us is quite dated. We would love to replace our dated three mega pixel digital camera. The quality of the student photographs has suffered especially when we try to reproduce them or enlarge the images. Certainly, incorporating the latest digital camera technology will upgrade our published photographs as well as improve the student writing anthologies. Using this level of camera and accompanying software will expose all students to the magical world of photography.

In the past, fighting against diminishing school budgets, our creative writing anthologies have been reproduced using standard black and white photocopiers. Needless to say, the overall quality of the final products suffered. Purchasing color laser printers will help our students showcase their incredible talents. More students will be willing to submit their photography and artwork once they see the possibilities of adding much needed color.

Our program is unique because not only does it include the myriad talents of a singer/songwriter serving as an artist-in-residence, but it also involves high school students exploring their own creative interests. An integral component of the high school writing workshops is teaching the value and importance of giving back to the greater school community. High school students serving as writing mentors to younger children is an essential ingredient to our program. We would like to share these successes with the community.

Procuring digital cameras and camcorders will enable us to record our creative writing workshops and document the success of our students. Students will learn to film, edit and produce a documentary of their experiences. A cornerstone of our project will be to capture some of the live performances by the artist-in-residence as she uses her music to inspire students to write. We will also record every student performing at least one piece of writing.

Using computer software will enable students to edit the DVD footage. The final piece will be to reproduce a DVD for every participant in our project. Students, teachers and parents will have a keepsake to cherish.

We envision a school where students take an active role in their learning. A Digital Wish award will enable students to introduce new technology to their peers in other classrooms. The new technology would allow us to incorporate a "performance piece" requirement for all students to complete at the end of an academic year. Students’ recording their own DVDs and CDs to enhance their written work is currently a dream. A Digital wish award can help make it a reality.

High School students will spend several weeks writing creatively while working with a singer/songwriter. Focusing on stream of consciousness writing, students will videotape writing workshops, live performances, and take photographs to suppliment their writing.

High school volunteers will accompany me and the artist-in-residence to the middle school to work with a team of sixth graders. Older students will serve as writing mentors. Again, we will utilize the digital recordings and photograps to produce a DVD of the experience as well as a color anthology for every participant in the workshops.