Students and staff discuss
the categories used for museum collections. |
4. Writing
Labels for the exhibition were written by participants. An
investigation of various types plus editing and revision encouraged the use of
clear language in the museum displays. There is also a catalogue for the
exhibition which includes writing by students.
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The Project's Impact
Participants gained communication skills in many different ways
- orally, in print and visually. Staff and contract specialists worked with
students, introducing them to exhibit design, archives research and Internet
page design and applications.
"I Do, I Do" was a significant collaboration for the
Heritage Complex and Muslim Community Services. It confirmed that language
education and cultural literacy go hand in hand, especially in an area, such as
the Peel Region, which has a large percentage of newcomers. Hopefully, the
participants gained confidence in their language skills and feel that they made
a vital contribution to a local cultural organization that values their input
and experience.
Program Update
The "Reading The Museum" program was active on many
fronts during this past six months. Six demonstration projects were completed
and three projects are in progress.
Work continues on the video about the "Reading The
Museum" program by filmmakers Tim Schwab and Chris Craton of First Light
Films. Tim presented an excerpt at the session on literacy at the annual CMA
conference in Toronto in April which featured learners from the New Brunswick
Museum project. The final shoot for the video will take place in Edmonton in
June. Chris is especially looking forward to it based on her initial trip in
February. "Edmonton was especially inspirational. We got to meet two
different groups of women who took part in Reading the Museum projects and
their enthusiasm was contagious. These women showed such confidence and
motivation. There is no doubt in my mind that a large part of that growing
confidence lies in their success with the book projects. We even had the
pleasure of getting some of the participants to sign the books they have
written - not something I had anticipated in a literacy project!"
Learners and teachers from the Peel Heritage Complex -Muslim
Community Services project also spoke at the CMA conference session about their
experiences of working with artifacts and texts from their exhibition "I
Do, I Do".
I am delighted to report thatJulie Cormier and Helen Frigault,
who participated in the New Brunswick Museum project, read stories about their
experiences in the museum at the 1st Montreal Literary Festival on April 23.
They also participated in a workshop on community writing at the festival along
with their tutor, Brenda Jarvis, of Read SaintJohn the project's literacy
partner. "Hear Are Your Roots", the 1998 literacy project of the
Fraser-Fort George Museum in Prince George, British Columbia also gained
recognition by receiving a nomination for a combating racism award.
Finally, in addition to its own publication activities, there
are articles and reports about the work of the "Reading The Museum"
program in various journals, magazines and anthologies. The most recent article
is "Literacy and Visual Culture in Three Art Gallery Settings" which
appears in Beyond The School: Case Studies of Community and Institutional
Partnerships in Art Education, edited by R L. Irwin and A. M. Kindler and
published by the National Art Education Association.
Lon Dubinsky
Coordinator, Reading the Museum
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