First day of class

Chapter 2 of the Paper Picker Press officially began today. Six schools have adopted us and we started our creative literacy program in our first only hours ago. A painter and a visual artist braved kids ages K-5 to introduce the first of many productive sessions all geared around a single text. A musician and a bookmaker wowed an audience of seven to nine year olds. And so the love of reading begins for 40+ young literati…

Artists, I’d like to introduce you to HASI…

Representatives from all six HASI programs met our artists today—enthusiastically hand-matched, of course, by our Paper Picker Press coordinator, Emily Ullman. I won’t say it was love at first site, but it was close: Schools seeking photography programs found their Polaroid (instant gratification, that is), while those craving book-makers were pleased to meet the charming Bob Davies…the list goes on and on. After a brief introduction, artists drove through short texts, explaining their ideas for exploding the narrative into a variety of productive “games.” Then we played one such game, asking our HASI program reps to draw characters described by their fellow guinea pigs. The results were magical. “All Summer in a Day” has never produced such wonderfully varied responses: “What was the teacher in the next room doing? Sowing like a good teacher! That’s why her kids didn’t get into trouble!” What will they come up with next?

For our end, Cultural Agents issued pre-assessment surveys chronicling the wants and needs of HASI program leaders as well as all the logistical goodies that make real-life programs tick.

Thank you so much to HASI once again for arranging this meeting of the minds!