Arkansas Studio Project

The Arkansas Studio Project (formerly known as Razorback Writers) celebrated its sixth and final year of arts-oriented literacy outreach in Northwest Arkansas in 2015.

A joint initiative between CCY and the UA English Department’s Brown Chair in English Literacy, the Arkansas Studio Project served four Springdale Schools in 2015, providing after-school and in-school mentoring for students at J. O. Kelly Middle School, George Junior High School, Southwest Junior High School, and Springdale High School. Participants engaged in arts-based and community-based projects to strengthen reading, writing, speaking, and listening abilities.

University of Arkansas undergraduate students collaborated with visiting artists – photographers, songwriters and videographers – to introduce younger students to the arts, connecting creative projects to literacy goals in history, language arts and earth sciences. Visiting artists were supported by the Arkansas Arts Council, and many of the participating undergraduate student-mentors later entered the university’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.

Although the Arkansas Studio Project is completed, Arkansas Arts Council teaching artists are still available to come for classroom workshops on an individual basis. If you are a teaching artist or educator interested in setting up a visit, please contact Hung Pham at ccy@uark.edu.

An ASP Story: Shadow Puppet Film Project at Springdale High School

In spring 2015, Arkansas Studio Project members worked with an ESL World History class on a semester-long silhouette film project. In small groups, students were tasked with retelling events from Roman history with shadow puppets. They wrote reader’s-theater-style scripts, sketched story boards and fashioned puppets out of paper. In the production stage, each group shot its silhouette scenes using a camera, screen and backlight and then recorded its audio script. The films finally came together during the editing process in a computer lab: music was added, audio was synced with video. The students did great work. Flip through the pictures below!