By Chloe Johnson
KETTERING, OH-
One of the few DRSS projects that is in its sixth year, the genocide poster
project, is back. A new group of tenth graders will develop concepts for
posters memorializing the victims of genocides or attaching the past to the
present. Different from the past years, a teacher who is in his first year
at DRSS, Mr. Nuñez, has taken the lead in helping students create their
posters. He is currently teaching 10th grade World History and 11th
grade Economics. With a new teacher helping the students with the project,
there will be plenty of fresh ideas and a different perspective.
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| Above, 1th grade students are working on sketches for their images before critique sessions. |
Contrary to the previous years, the genocide posters are
being created after the formal letter project. The formal letter project
incorporates both Language Arts and World History. The purpose of these letters
is for students to write about a topic they care about. Students wrote formal
letters to a senator, congressman, administrators, members of the state board
of education, and others about subjects they were passionate about. Since the
students were passionate about the topic of genocide, the teachers changed the
topic of the letter project. Instead of writing the letters about a topic the
students were not interested in, the students were allowed to choose a topic
that they cared about. The concepts ranged in many varieties from not
recognizing genocides, leaving out details about what happened to the Native
Americans, not accepting Syrian refugees into the country, and many more were
discussed in the letters the students wrote. The letters helped the sophomores
to make direct connections between what they learned during the genocide unit
and what they can do in the real world. If the students received a passing
grade on the letter, this made them eligible to create the genocide posters.
In creating their artwork, each student was given a choice
to work by themselves, with a partner, or with a group of three to four people.
The only stipulations were that the group members needed to read the same genocide
book, and be in at least one of their language arts or world history periods.
Before working on the genocide letters or posters, the students read books
focusing on different genocides, including the Armenian Genocide, the
Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide.
After the students chose their partner, they researched statistics about the
genocide they either wanted to memorialize or compare to a current event. After
finalizing their statistics, they developed slogans and came up with a message
for their poster. The message helped the students come up with potential images
to display.
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| Students inking their posters using linoleum block print. |
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| Students ink their posters in World History & Language Arts classes. |
Before the students developed their final image, they
worked with Ms. Whitman-Allen, the 7th grade STEM Foundation teacher
and 11th and 12th grade Creative Writing and Photography
teacher, to make their graphics the best they could. Ms. Reid, the 10th
grade Language Arts teacher, believes that the students working with Ms.
Whitman-Allen helped them immensely. The past tenth-graders who worked with the
STEM Foundation teacher have taken her advice to heart, keeping the images
simple yet strong. Mr. Nunez wants to push the students to bring new ideas and
think outside of the box. He proposes that pushing the tenth graders to be more
creative will initiate new unique spins on pictures and their slogans. Finally,
they worked on drafts before etching the artwork into linoleum to be stamped on
their final pieces. The linoleum is a type of stamp that is used to cut images
in to print.
After scanning in their images, students added text to the
posters. During their language arts class, they worked on the wording in their
slogans and statistics. Mr. Nunez concludes that having the letter project
before the poster project helped the students focus on the emotional trauma
caused to the people who went through these genocides before exhibiting what
they learned. From flowers, guts, and gravesites, the posters range in a wide
variety of storylines and ideas. All in all, the genocide poster projects are
always interesting to see come to life, and Mr. Nuñez promised “the posters
will definitely end up being showcased.”
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| Some of the posters look nearly finished. Stay tuned for more details in our newsletter and on our social media outlets to find out where the posters will be displayed this year! |
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| Students participated in group critiques to help one another improve the messaging of their posters after they were printed. |
Be sure to check the newsletter for information about where the posters will be on display this year!
