Engaging Students through Folklore Documentation: Professional Development for K-12 Educators

Arkansas K-12 educators in the humanities. Lesson plans are designed for grades 6-12.

Participants of this program are introduced to documentation techniques, ethics of working with communities, research and archiving methods, presentation of culture, and project development.

Participants are required to attend all daily sessions in person for the three-day duration. At the end of the program, participants:

• Gain 18 hours of professional development credit.
• Receive access to a range of lesson plans covering topics on folklore and folklife in Arkansas.
• FOR 2024: Eligiblity to receive up to $75 reimbursement for travel costs.

OVERVIEW OF TYPICAL SCHEDULE AND TOPICS:

Day 1 – Introduction to AFTA and Program; Introduction to Folklore; Partnering with Community Organizations; Using Archival Materials with K12 Students; Archival Collection Viewing

Day 2 – Folklore Documentation; Oral History Interviews; Folk Culture vs. Popular Culture; Interview Equipment; Practice Using Equipment. Optional Evening Activity: Documentary Screening

Day 3 – Community Collaboration; Presenting Student Research; Models for Presenting Student Research; Connecting with Visual Folk Arts and Active Listening

When applications open for our next program, the application link will be available here. Keep an eye on AFTA’s website and social media for details for our next planned program: folklife.uark.edu/connect/. 

Please note that this page was originally published here: https://folklife.uark.edu/k12-teacher-training/

Application

Applications for the summer 2024 program will be reviewed on a rolling basis through July 1, 2024 at 12 PM. The application is available here.

Location

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Mullins Library, 365 N. McIlroy Avenue, Fayetteville, AR 72701

What’s Included?

Housing with linens is available on the University of Arkansas campus for interested applicants.

Meals are NOT provided.

Participants are eligiblity to receive up to $75 reimbursement for travel costs.

Guest Speakers

Meredith Martin-Moats wears many hats: cultural worker, writer, radio producer, oral historian, researcher, community organizer, flower farmer and caregiver. She works to weave connections across generations and work across divides. She supports place-based work focused on a deep understanding of land and community history and conducts anti-racist, community-based research. She also strives to situate and elevate caregiving as central to community work and enjoys getting her hands in the dirt.

Martin-Moats received her Master of Arts degree in folk studies from Western Kentucky University. She is a co-founder of The McElroy House: Organization for Cultural Resources in Dardanelle and currently serves as co-director for the River Valley Adult Learning Alliance, an organization working to provide community-based literacy and multilingual resources across five rural counties in central Arkansas. She also works on the Participatory Action Research project at Highlander Research and Education Center.

She and her family operate Sulphur Springs Truck Patch, an experimental tiny farm and increasingly research-focused project in Harkey Valley, on land that was passed down from her grandfather. She lives with her family, dogs, cats, many critters and beloved donkey on what is rightfully Osage ancestral land in Yell County.

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Dr. Lisa L. Higgins directs the Missouri Folk Arts Program, folk and traditional arts partner of the Missouri Arts Council (MAC) based at the Museum of Art & Archaeology at the University of Missouri. Higgins manages daily operations, including staff, budgets, grants, reports, strategic communications, and consultants. She is the program specialist for MAC’s Folk Arts grants, coordinates Missouri Folk Arts’ outreach activities and social media, and collaborates with MAC on key initiatives, like arts and aging. Via the Show Me Folk Initiative, Higgins organizes outreach and engagement with local advisers and community scholars, provides support for consultants, and coordinates the Living Traditions Sustainer Fellowships. She previously worked at South Arts, a regional arts organization, as Traditional Arts Program Manager.

Higgins earned a PhD in English with emphases in Folklore and Rhetoric from the University of Missouri, as well as BA and MA degrees at Arkansas State University. She served on the curatorial team for The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region at the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In 2022, she joined the volunteer board, as treasurer, of Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education. Higgins’ select publications include essays in Culture Works: Folklore for the Public Good, Eds. Marcus Cederström and Tim Frandy (2022); Journal of Folklore Research, Volume 59, Number 2 (2022); Expressive Lives of Elders: Folklore, Art & Aging, Ed. Jon Kay (2018); Through the Schoolhouse Door: Folklore, Community, Curriculum, Eds. Paddy Bowman and Lynn Hamer 2011; and in Volumes 3 and 5 of the Journal of Folklore and Education.

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Raven Cook is a Fayetteville resident with deep roots in Arkansas. With a commitment to education and empowerment, Raven has worked in the Northwest Arkansas community teaching Black History, visual art, and Diversity, Equity, and inclusion. Raven holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and is pursuing a master’s degree in the inaugural Art History master’s program also at the University. Raven was an associate museum educator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Director of Education at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and a consultant at the former IDEALS Institute. She has received numerous awards for her work and continues to grow in her desire to build community through curiosity. When Raven is not working in the community, she enjoys time with her family at home. Raven acknowledges that most of her achievements come from her deep faith and support of her dad, Michael Cook, mother Patsy Warren Cook, brother Stephen, loving partner, Sam, and her newest addition, her little boy, Jermaro (pronounced like tomorrow) Robert Lewis.

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Gregory Hansen is Professor of Folklore and English at Arkansas State University, where he also teaches in the Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program. He completed his graduate degrees in folklore at Western Kentucky University and Indiana University. Dr. Hansen has completed public folklore projects for the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Danish America, Florida Folklife Program, Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, and other organizations. His research and publications center on folklore and education, public folklore, documentary media, and folk performances.  He has produced a number of documentary videos and is the author of A Florida Fiddler: The Life and Times of Richard Seaman, which Western Folklore reviewed as “one of the finest books yet about an individual folk artist.” His most recent publication is Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage, a volume that he co-edited with Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya and Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira. In addition to his research and teaching, Dr. Hansen also coordinates A-State’s annual Delta Symposium and assists with the Arkansas Roots Music Festival.

Much of Dr. Hansen’s work in public folklore has centered on folklife education. He worked as a folk arts coordinator for ten years with the Florida Folklife Program. Much of his work included directing Jacksonville’s Duval County Folklife Program. The project was recognized with the 1990 “Program of Excellence Award” from Florida Council for the Social Studies. He also assisted with the research and writing of the Smithsonian’s “Iowa Folklife: Our People, Communities, and Traditions” and “The Florida Music Train.” Both of these resources were recognized with the Dorothy Howard Prize for excellence in folklife education from the American Folklore Society’s “Folklore and Education Section.” For over two decades, he served as co-editor for the newsletter of this section for the American Folklore Society.