Digital Humanities Club: Week 4

Team leader Amelia Williams talks with high school student

On October 4, we worked on flat lays with the high school students. Flat lays are images of a selection of items photographed from above. We gave the students opportunities to arrange and then photograph electronic devices and African American books for their flat lays. The purpose was to give students a chance to think about arrangement decisions and to produce recordings discussing their rationale. In future activities, we'll work with students edit the audio recordings that they produced.

Gaige Crowell noted that he and the student he worked with had noticed flat lays before but had never known there was a name for them. The student said that "he had seen similar pictures of iPads set up against a background for a picture in a magazine, but he didn't know the term for those kinds of pictures." Amelia Williams thought the activity was useful because it could expose students "to different forms of technology they can use in the future, and other careers related to how the technology is made, or how it is used from day-to-day."

High school student and team leader Tiara Perkins work on flat lay

Tiara Perkins observed that "one thing I found most interesting while working with the students this week is how much they like technology and would like to use it as often as they can. Not only for texting or social media which is what you would think their minds would be obsessed with but for things like listening to music and playing different games."

Week #4 reflection from graduate student, Rae'Jean Spears:

This week’s meeting with the East St. Louis Charter school went well. A few new, young scholars from the Charter school joined the program and offered new insight to ideas we had already been discussing. For example, one of the young men shared how he wanted to work with animations when he got older so that he could create videos on social justice to circulate on social media. I’m looking forward to continue to having conversations such as these with students and learning how they see themselves as future change agents.

Related:
• The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club