Mendocino Artists: An Endangered Species
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Produced by students at Mendocino (CA) High School in 2000, Mendocino Artists: An Endangered Species documents and
celebrates the work and creators of this vibrant arts community, currently threatened by rising property values.
The book’s elegant, two-page spreads feature a black and white portrait of each artist (and in some cases a
husband-wife team), taken by students with an old large view camera donated by a friend of their photography teacher.
Color plates display samples of the artists’ work, which range from paintings and sculpture, mixed media and weaving
to woodcarving and the crafting of guitars and flutes. Written narratives, prepared from students’ interview material,
profile and offer artists’ reflections about their careers. Students exhibited their work at a municipal building and
at the Mendocino Art Center as part of its 40th Anniversary Celebration and Exhibition.
Copies of the book are available online at: www.ncrcn.org/products/index.html.
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The Beat Within
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Produced by the nonprofit Pacific News Service, The Beat Within is a weekly magazine created by teenagers in juvenile
detention facilities in seven Bay Area counties. The publication’s 100-plus pages of poems, prose, rap, and drawings come from up to 40 weekly workshops conducted by Beat Within staff. The voluntary sessions start with a group discussion of two “questions of the week” that draw on personal experiences or current events. Beat staff—many formerly "in the system" themselves—work one-on-one with detainees, offering coaching and encouragement, both literary and personal. For each published piece, some submitted under pen names, Beat staff also print responses, furthering relationships begun in workshops. Each issue ends with a “Beat Without” section, letters and commentary mailed from across the U.S., mostly by those in adult facilities but some from the “free” world. Two thousand copies of The Beat Within are distributed each week to workshop attendees, family members, judges, probation workers, and teachers.
For copies or further information visit www.pacificnews.org/yo/beat/ or
contact David Inocencio, The Beat Within, at 415-438-4755 or davidi@pacificnews.org.
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Sun River Valley Historical Auto Tour Guide
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At the request of the president of a local historical society, nine seniors in the 1998-99 Honors English class at Simms High School
researched, wrote, and designed an auto tour guide of their western Montana community. The brochure unfolds to feature a large,
bright map of the region, color-coded by elevation, with brief historical summaries of the area’s four main towns. The map
locates 18 points of interest throughout the valley—such as Birdtail Rock and Ginger’s Saloon and Historic Floating Dance
Floor—giving a brief description and history of each. The reverse side presents an historical overview of the Sun River
Valley and photographs of scenic vistas paired with poems students wrote about them. Grants from Travel Montana, The Montana
Heritage Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation helped cover the
printing costs of 20,000 copies that continue to be distributed free of charge, by a Missoula tourism group, to locations
throughout Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. For copies of the touring guide, available for $5 shipping and handling, contact
Dottie Susag at Simms High School, 406-264-5110 or dotsusag@3rivers.net.
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Why Tease?!
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Four Chicago area Girl Scouts, the entire membership of Senior Troop 161, wrote and illustrated this children’s book to teach youngsters about the repercussions of teasing and bullying. Aged 15 to 17, Molly, Erin, Julie, and Annemarie got the idea for Why Tease?! from events like the Columbine shootings, from their own experiences, and from observing the hurtful behavior during Scout projects with younger kids. The story begins with a playground bully excluding another child from a dodge ball game, then illustrates a way to defuse such situations. To show that anyone can be teased, the girls drew all the book’s characters from the waist down, faceless and featureless. They also prepared a teacher’s guide and mail-in feedback survey. A grant they won from Youth Venture, a nonprofit supporting teens as active community participants, covered printing costs and offered technical assistance. The book is now part of the curriculum in dozens of Chicago area grammar schools, and the Girl Scouts recently instituted a Why Tease?! patch and program to raise awareness. For copies or further information, contact the Girls Scouts of Chicago at www.girlscouts-chicago.org or 312-416-2500.
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Tidepooling Adventures Along the Mendocino Coast
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Fifteen students in the 1998 Advanced Topics biology class at Mendocino High School produced this field guide to aquatic life
in the ecologically diverse intertidal area. The booklet features stunning color photography and written descriptions for 20
marine organisms—from sponges, abalone, and anemones to barnacles, periwinkles, and sea stars—plus four species of
birds. Closeup shots show the beauty of the ecosystem and make for easy identification in the field, while accompanying text
details information about organisms’ behavior, reproduction, habitat and range, diet and predation. The guide also includes
a map of local tidepools, a note about Pacific tides, and an explanation of intertidal zonation (the guide is organized according
to the four zones of the intertidal area: splash and spray, high tide, mid tide, and low tide). In a conclusion entitled “Think
Preservation,” students remind tidepool visitors to protect the ecosystem and to consult local Fish & Game departments about
regulations. A marine biology student at the high school also created a web version of the guidebook
(see: www.ncrcn.org/me/Projects/Tidepool/).
For copies of the booklet or more information go to
www.ncrcn.org/products/prod_tid.html.
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Mentors
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The final product in a year-long senior thesis project, Mentors is a photo-essay book by Victoria Stilwell, a 2002
graduate of “The Met” School in Providence, RI. Reflecting her own interests in writing and photography, the
author documents through words and stirring black and white images 30 student-mentor pairings in workplace internships.
The book captures the full range of students’ passions and the work opportunities sponsored by the school: students
work in trout hatcheries, yacht restoration shops, indoor rock climbing centers; they serve as aides to hospital translators,
teachers, City Hall officials, and state archivists; they apprentice with glassblowers, muralists, metal smiths. After
on-site visits for interviews and photo shoots, Victoria wrote the text, selected images, returned drafts for fact-checking, collected release forms, and designed the layout—with, of course, support from her own mentors. She sent a letter and mock copy of the book to the parents of every student featured. The school covered the cost of printing and plans to use the book as an illustration of the individualized learning it champions. For copies (expected in early July) or more information, contact Victoria Stilwell at echidnae@hotmail.com
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From the Bottom of Our Hearts
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Produced in collaboration with the mental health advocacy group Tennessee Voices for Children, From the Bottom of Our Hearts is a volume of poetry, essays, and artwork about the September 11 attacks by students in grades 5 - 12 at Nashville’s East Literature Magnet School. Overwhelmed by the events, students initially balked at the idea of writing about 9/11; their hesitation turned to enthusiasm, though, once they conceived of the project as a way to comfort suffering students in New York City by sharing their own experiences of grief and loss. With a foreward written by Tipper Gore, the book features poems and songs of hope, personal narratives about enduring tragedy, and “I, Too, Have a Dream” essays modeled on Dr. King’s famous speech. Students also wrote articles about mental health issues after attending a presentation by former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, offered as part of a Fisk University course on behavioral and mental health taught by Al Gore. Two-hundred-fifty copies of From the Bottom of Our Hearts will be sent to NYC schools. For copies or more information, contact Andrea Flowers, Tennessee Voices For Children, at 615-269-7751 or aflowers@tnvoices.org or Kaye Schneider, East Magnet Literature School at 615-262-6947 or schneiderk@eastliteraturemagnet.org.
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Y.E.L.L. Annual Youth Reports
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Y.E.L.L. (Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning) is a project of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University that provides school and community leaders with youth perspectives and youth-gathered data on critical issues. The Y.E.L.L. team at Kennedy Middle School researched how to make its Redwood City community safer and more fun for youth. The eighth and ninth graders collected and analyzed 716 surveys and 54 interviews with peers; they also videotaped safe and unsafe places where local teens hang out. Their 31-page report includes 24 findings supported by tables and graphs. The team’s eight recommendations range from better involving youth in the community to installing a pedestrian ramp near school to training teachers in interactive learning. For copies of the report visit http://gardnercenter.stanford.edu/index.shtml and for further information, contact Maria Fernandez at 650-736-2015 or mafernandez@stanford.edu.
Students in the West Oakland Y.E.L.L. project, based at McClymonds High, assessed the strengths and needs of their own school, focusing on student behavior, attitude and attendance; teaching and learning; and school safety. The team developed, administered, and analyzed data from interviews, surveys, observations, and focus groups. For each focus area in their 19-page report, students give findings, offer personal perspectives on the issue, and make recommendations for improvement. Click here to read the report in PDF format or contact Yolanda Anyon at 510-206-6081 or yanyon@stanford.edu.
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