Montavilla Community Center

Ms. Hooten's fifth-period and sixth-period English class explored their school's core themes – demonstration, performance, and advocacy – by initiating an outreach program and launching a teen advisory council with a local community center. The students' goal was to help Montavilla Community Center find better ways to connect with local teens by proposing an event that would both be productive and attract teen attendance.

The participating students researched the types of events teens wanted their community centers to offer, developed a rationale and budget, and presented their findings both orally and in writing to the Montavilla Community Center building supervisors. Students each kept a personal journal of their experience, wrote a problem-solution persuasive essay, and used their essay for the basis of their digital storytelling project.

After editing and refining their scripts, students used digital still and video cameras to capture supporting material and sourced relevant digital imagery to illustrate specific details and perspectives of their school community. Finally, they created titles, worked with transitions, chose music to set the appropriate tone, and experimented with special effects to complete their videos.