IDENTIFYING CHANGEMAKERS IN THE COMMUNITY

ABSTRACT

UNCSA High School Seniors enrolled in a “Changemakers” themed English course will undertake a participatory action research project over the course of the 2020-21 academic year. Students will identify a changemaker local to Winston-Salem and/or Forsyth County, conduct independent research about these changemakers and the contexts of the issues they are addressing, and represent their research in a public-facing narrative series on a website they create. Over the duration of the project, students will familiarize themselves with the context of the problem their changemaker is addressing, interview the changemaker about their inspiration and work, and craft their research into a narrative that presents this changemaker in a fair and accurate way. During the research process, students will have opportunities to interrogate the role that space plays in not only changemaking work itself, but also how space impacts access to resources and is implicated in the very problems that changemakers are working to address. This year’s project will function as a pilot program, with the goal being to conduct the project again with different local changemakers in future versions of the course.