Read.Write.Act. Conference 2017

The literacy labs began with 42 youth, quickly expanded to 120, and now service over 200 writers each summer. This is in addition to the 15-35 teachers and writers who attend a National Writing Project institute at Fairfield University.

Project Citizen began with Sean Mitchell (a Beard Teacher Award recipient) and Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall realized that there needed to be more opportunities for young people to advance their passions through social advocacy. Here, students wrote OpEds, articles, and letters to local newspapers, organizations, and community leaders to enact change. After two years of this work, the National Writing Project awarded CWP-Fairfield a Summer Camp grant to not only continue the literacy lab, but to expand it so that more youth were included and teachers could collect data on what they accomplished (in order to help other teachers across the nation).

This summer, 28 youth attended Project Citizen through the National Writing Project support and 50% of them receive full scholarship. The two-week literacy lab intentionally (re)mixed and (re)hashed youth populations so that participants represented the heterogeneity of American society: racially, economically, regionally, biologically, and sociologically. Included in the literacy lab were young people from urban, rural, and suburban schools districts, including Lakota Sioux youth from S. Dakota. Three teachers led the literacy lab and encouraged OpEd writing, memoir, spoken work poetry, hip hop/song, and TedTalks. The two-week literacy lab culminated with a “Performance Prom” where students showcased their best work. In addition, the National Writing Project published student writing on a website created for them and will later be published in POW! Power of Words, an Anthology for Teachers and Youth.

In two weeks, young people wrote in a variety of genres. Special to the intent of Project Citizen, however, was special bonds that were created between youth attending this literacy lab and others enrolled in Ubuntu Academy. The young people not only wrote about local concerns, but had opportunities to collaborate on international issues (which resulted in a spontaneous hip hop collaboration between both programs)

This presentation will highlight the history of Young Adult Literacy Labs, the expertise of teachers involved in the project, and demonstration of youth writing and success.

As a result of this discussion, people have also begun to become increasingly aware of the importance of information literacy. While this is not a new conversation amongst information professionals and educators, it may be a relatively recent concept for the communities that we work with. We believe this is an essential survival skill for the promotion of effective civic engagement in our current era of alternative facts.

Join two MLIS candidates from Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies as they explore the phenomenon surrounding fake news and posit potential ways to promote information literacy. This discussion will include a historical overview of these concepts and a close look at how information is relayed and received in the digital age. Additionally, we will provide methods of identifying fake news and teaching digital literacy to communities. Our hope is to conclude with a look at current practices and a conversation about where we can promote continued growth in this area.

Bryan Ripley Crandall, Ph.D., Director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University and Assistant Professor of Literacy in the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, works nationally with educators and youth in support of student publication, activism, and empowerment. His research interests include writing instruction, young adult literature, refugee and immigrant youth, and community-based scholarship. Crandall’s work with youth communities and schools across Connecticut received a 2015 MLK Vision Award, a 2016 Presidential Innovation Award for Service, a 2017 Elizabeth M. Pfriem Award for Community Engagement, and a 2018 Divergent Award in 21st Century Literacies. Most recently, Crandall has redesigned summer opportunities for youth and teachers through Young Adult Literacy Labs and teacher institutes, including Ubuntu Academy, a literacy initiative for immigrant and refugee youth.

Nicole Potter has always been interested in librarianship and information studies, in fact, her first job was in a library when she was sixteen years old. Since then, she has worked at a variety of cultural institutions, including academic libraries, an anthropology and paleontology museum, and a medical archive. She received her BA at St. Lawrence University (2015) and, currently, she is pursuing her Masters in Library and Information Studies with Certificate of Advanced Study in Cultural Heritage Preservation at Syracuse University. While she hopes to go on to work in paper conservation, she is also committed to the idea of radical librarianship. She knows that libraries can serve as agents of change and that social justice movements can begin there.

Jill Scarson is a Syracuse-area native with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration (SU 2010). She happily stumbled across the field of Information Studies as an undergraduate, working one-on-one with library administrators. Jill is currently pursuing her MLIS part-time while she works for Project Advance, Syracuse University’s program for concurrent enrollment in high schools. Although her primary interest lies within academic institutions, she is fascinated by the ever-evolving role of libraries as beacons for community engagement. She is particularly interested in policy, intellectual freedom, and the relationship between libraries and democracy. In her free time, Jill can be found reading, sewing, and utilizing her undergraduate degree to create hand-stitched “protest pieces”. It is her belief that libraries should provide communities with the tools and resources necessary to become (pro)active members of society.

Beth is a founding member of Books & Beyond. She has served as a faculty advisor, instructor, and advisory committee member since 2008. Vera is the assistant director of the Global Living Learning Center and has worked with the project since 2013.