Summer Curriculum /
Gathering Neighborhood Knowledge
The intention of the Summer Curriculum is to enable youth researchers (ages 13-18) to produce powerful stories about their neighborhood across a range of issues.
The Curriculum takes the form of a menu, and begins with the youth researchers self-selecting into groups of two. Each team then selects the issues in their neighborhood they would like to investigate, and the media through which they would like to narrativize it. Once each team has made their selections, social contracts are filmed to articulate mutual responsibilities and expectations.
Their selection of issues and media also guides the process of gathering knowledge in the weeks that follow. A variety of texts, scripts, and interviews about their neighborhoods are generated, with support from a diverse floating faculty of community organizers, designers, researchers, and other professionals. The teams then stitch this knowledge together to produce a neighborhood narrative by the final week.
Overview
- Week 1: Introduction to Mixplace and the idea of Social Contracts
- Week 2 & 3: Ways of Knowing
- Week 4 & 5: Ways of Constructing Narratives
- Week 6: Final Presentations of Narratives and Introduction to Social Change
Learn more
- Neighborhood Issues
- Media
- Curriculum Menu (PDF)