Appleton West students watch documentaries they created with PBS Wisconsin, April 13, 2023. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Students at a Fox Valley high school are showcasing their film making skills.
As PBS Wisconsin gets ready to debut a new documentary on Appleton’s history, it worked with students at West High School to research and create their own history documentaries.
While PBS Wisconsin’s production team was exploring the history of Appleton and creating a documentary, another perspective was taking shape.
“We were really excited because this is where the learning happens for our kids, this is the most real world, applicable thing we could ever ask of them,” said Rebecca Whittle, an ELA and history teacher at Appleton West.
For the past school year, PBS Wisconsin Education production and engagement staff, teamed up with Appleton West teachers and students.
They have been exploring history, storytelling, media literacy and video production through “Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Youth Media.”
“There was a little bit for everybody so there was like the writing piece, the interviewing piece, the filming piece,” said Whittle.
Students in West’s AP American Studies class, conducted research and learned basic production skills to create mini-documentaries.
On Thursday, they premiered at West High School’s auditorium.
“They picked the questions, they picked the direction, really they drove the story and they drove all the work behind it. It was really student driven,” said Dave Babcock, a history and social studies teacher at Appleton West.
With help from PBS Wisconsin Education, and their teachers, Whittle and Babcock, students chose local history topics they found personally interesting and important.
“We chose history of Lawrence through the lens of diversity. So basically just diversity at Lawrence and how it’s evolved through the years,” said Lia Martinez, a junior at West.
“Youth Media” is meant to extend community engagement to younger generations through historical research in their community.
Martinez says she’s excited to see the work she and her team put together.
“It was definitely a really cool experience and then after this, I really like the fact I’ve been able to see behind the curtain and stuff with all of that,” said Martinez.
Whittle says the experience will help students, with lifelong skills.
“These kids learned the difficulty of writing a story and condensing where every word counts, every picture counts,” said Whittle. “Writing college essays, college scholarships, where you have like a 500 word limit, they really learned how to organize.”
The project complements PBS Wisconsin’s “Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Appleton” documentary, premiering April 24.
Appleton residents have a chance to see the full documentary ahead of the television premiere. There’s a free community screening Thursday, April 13 at 7:30 at Poplar Hall down in the flats.
Appleton West’s “Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Youth Media,” will be available to watch on PBS Wisconsin’s YouTube page.
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