This fall, renowned photographer Roger May will be headlining the first annual Appalachian Literary Arts Storytelling Festival in Nelsonville, Ohio by sharing his collaborative project aimed at highlighting an authentic version of Appalachia following the War on Poverty. His crowd-sourced project began in 2014, fifty years after President Johnson’s infamous speech.

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Ahead of May's appearance, we are calling on local school districts to curate their own mini-exhibit with the goal of guiding students to showcase their Appalachia in their home or school communities. 

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Each participating district will be given space for up to ten photos to be displayed within The Grand Lobby of Stuart’s Opera House on October 5th and 6th. It will be up to the school district to choose the photos that make the final exhibit, printing the photos for the exhibit, and setting up the display on October 5th.

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Attached you will find a quick 1-2 day lesson that can be used with your classes or augmented to fit them. This would be a great welcome-back project in the fall. English teachers could focus on photojournalism and pairing photography with the written word, history teachers could choose an angle of photographing historic locations in the area, science teachers could look for environmental beauties and concerns, art teachers could focus on rule of thirds, lighting, or camera angles–the opportunities are endless. 

 

The benefits for you and your school community include:

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• Authentic assessment opportunity

• Recognition of your creative, insightful students 

• Awards brunch on the 6th for student exhibitors 

• One district will be awarded the OUR APPALACHIA Exhibit prize. This will go to the district whose collection of photos best tells an authentic, creative, cohesive story.

  • From this district, one student will receive a $250 prize for his or her photo.

  • The teacher leader for this district will also receive $250 for his or her dedication to guiding students in telling authentic place-based stories

• One photo from each participating district will be chosen to form the 2024 OUR APPALACHIA SHOWCASE. This showcase will be displayed at the Nelsonville Public Library and has the potential to travel around to other participating county libraries throughout the year. Each student whose work is chosen for this will receive $50

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Important things to note:

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• Teacher leader is responsible for choosing which students from each district participate. It all depends on the story you want your exhibit to tell.

• Note that the Looking At Appalachia website IS crowdsourced–younger students should not peruse the site with total freedom. Depending on your district, you may need to pull a few photos from his site to show as examples in lieu of setting them loose.

• Teacher leader is responsible for choosing the final 10 photos for each exhibit.

• Teacher leader is responsible for ensuring the photos are up and ready for display by October 5th at 9:30am. More details will be shared on this in the fall.

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Acceptance for this year’s exhibits will be on a first-come first-serve basis, as we have limited space available. If you are the teacher for your district that would like to take this on, or if you have further questions, please email us at alasfestival1024@gmail.com with your name and preferred method of contact.

 

We look forward to working with you and seeing YOUR Appalachia!