|
Dale Davis founded The New York State Literary Center (NYSLC)
in 1979. NYSLC was one of the first upstate New York arts
organizations to send writers into the public schools to teach
on a regular basis. In the past thirty-one years, over 300
writers and artists have worked with over 32,000 youth in more
than 600 different schools that span from rural, suburban, and
urban schools to alternative educational settings.
Starting in the early 1980’s, the successful residences became
the first step that led Davis to further NYSLC’s mission through
comprehensive programs that included visual, media, and theater
arts as part of in-depth, long-term, project-based,
interdisciplinary arts projects that addressed real, concrete
concerns of students and transformed the writing that went on in
school from a solitary, mechanical process into vibrant
interactive communications. Students wrote about their own
experiences and concerns, and the projects drew individual
student expression into collective publications, videos, CDs,
installations, and events to achieve presence.
NYSLC’s programs addressed topics ranging from AIDS education,
identity, stereotypes, racism, and popular culture. In theater,
with the production by a high school of Dale Davis’ play,
like we call it home, adapted from the writing of teenagers,
NYSLC brought in an audience of over 2000 students, parents, and
educators. like we call it home, with a cast of high
school students, toured high schools throughout NYS.
High school students in a NYSLC program performed the world
premiere of William Carlos Williams’ play, Tituba’s Children
and high school students in a NYSLC program performed William
Carlos Williams “Hymn for Rogation Sunday,” with music by Thomas
Canning, at the Harvard Club in NYC at the invitation of the
William Carols Williams Centennial for the Modern Language
Association.
A high school student who participated in a NYSLC project
accepted an internship by Bill Moyers that was offered on the
basis of the research and writing she did for the NYSLC
project. Another high school student’s video was selected for
inclusion in PBS’s Point of View / NewViews. NYSLC’s peer
directed AIDS ‘N US project was cited for excellence by
The Center for Disease Control National AIDS Clearinghouse. The
project was replicated nationally.
Writers and editors who worked with Dale Davis as integral
parts of NYSLC’s programs included Homero Aridjis, William
Bronk, Kenneth Burke, Robert Creeley, Malcolm Cowley, Robert
Duncan, Robert Fitzgerald, Jonathan Galassi, Hugh Kenner,
Ted Kooser, James Laughlin, Emir Rodriguez Monegal, Octavio
Paz, William Stafford, Eliot Weinberger, and Jonathan
Williams. Theater artists include Ruth Maleczech; and visual
artists included Carrie Mae Weems.
 |
 |
|
|
Octavio Paz |
Robert
Duncan |
|
 |
 |
|
| Hugh
Kenner |
Robert
Duncan and Thomas Meyer |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Jonathan Williams |
Kenneth Burke |
|
Davis’ belief that all young people have strengths expanded
NYSLC’s programs to reach students at the highest risk for
educational failure. In the 1990’s, NYSLC began work with
youth at highest risk for educational failure, those young
people in residential placement, long-term suspension, juvenile
justice facilities, and jails. NYSLC’s pedagogy built upon
developing the intellectual abilities of high-risk young people
by providing them with the tools necessary to construct meaning
in their lives and in their academic tasks. NYSLC connected
youth to positive values and provided them with the opportunity
to actively respond to events, rather than to passively react to
them. NYSLC made the connections between what is learned in
school and the students’ lives. NYSLC’s programs built a bridge
from the rhyme book to the classroom.
Two students won national poetry competitions; one student had
an article published in a national magazine; another student’s
writing was included as part of an article on juvenile violence
in Gannett Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle.
In 1998, NYSLC collaborated with an on line service for
journalists to inform the public about children’s’ issues. The
service’s website cited NYSLC as an example of the type of
project for youth at-risk that was promoted by The President’s
Committee on the Arts and Humanities. A student’s writing was
featured on the website, both as a hook for journalists and as
an example of how to write a story. The student’s book, Black
Men, was published by the NYSLC and made available through
Amazon.com.
In 2000, Davis produced a CD of students in residential
placement reading and performing their poetry as a way to
develop reading and writing skills. Davis saw producing a CD as
another opportunity to extend the students’ academic knowledge,
social skills, and personal behaviors through art. Young
Souls Speaking was the first CD she recorded and produced.
It was produced as a NYSLC pilot program. The pilot was
extremely successful. Adolescents with low reading skills who
refused to read aloud became comfortable reading and performing
their writing by the time they went to the recording studio.
NYSLC has published over
600 books of writing by young people, twenty issues of a news
journal, seven videos, thirty CDs, and thirty children’s books.
NYSLC’s programs have been the subject of an article in New
York magazine, honored by The President’s Committee on Arts
and Humanities, The Center for Disease Control National AIDS
Clearinghouse, the American Council on The Arts, The National
Alternative Education Association, The National Dropout
Prevention Association, the Annenberg School of Communication,
Arts In Criminal Justice, and a documentary by Columbia
University’s EdLab.
NYSLC’s programs focus on inquiry to discover who the young
people are and what is important to them through collaborative
art projects that not only improve literacy skills, but also
inject a sense of community belonging, give young people power
over the narrative of their lives, and enable youth to reach out
with strong, clear voices on personal and social identity and
articulate a compelling vision of how communities and schools
can be better places. NYSLC’s mission is to bridge the space
between the classroom and the larger community, deepen young
people’s understanding of the forces that shape their lives, and
help society better understand the needs and concerns of all
children.
|