You may see Chicago through short labels that miss lived experiences and community meaning. Public history is the shared story people record about the past. When residents' stories are missing, public history can leave out important knowledge. That can narrow whose knowledge shapes shared understanding.
Challenge Question
How might we document residents’ stories interactively so that Chicago communities experience their places more deeply?
Standards
[Illinois] VA:Cr2.3.I.a - **Investigate** Collaboratively develop a proposal for an installation, artwork, or space design that transforms the perception and experience of a particular place.
[Illinois] MA:Pr6.1.I.a - **Present** Design the presentation and distribution of collections of media artworks, considering combinations of artworks, formats, and audiences.
[Illinois] MA:Pr5.1.I.b - **Practice** Develop and refine a determined range of creative and adaptive innovation abilities (for example, design thinking, risk taking) in addressing identified challenges and constraints within and through media arts productions.
[Illinois] VA:Cr1.1.I.a - **Investigate, Plan, Make** Use multiple approaches to begin creative endeavors.
[Illinois] VA:Cr1.2.I.a - **Investigate, Plan, Make** Shape an artistic investigation of an aspect of present-day life using a contemporary practice of art or design.
Competencies
Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - Students consider a variety of innovative approaches to address and understand complex questions that are authentic and important to their communities.
Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
Content Expertise - Students develop key competencies, skills, and dispositions with ample opportunities to apply knowledge and engage in work that matters to them.
Academic Mindset - Students establish a sense of place, identity, and belonging to increase self-efficacy while engaging in critical reflection and action.
Learning Partners and Clients
Your learning partners are the Chicago organizations you visited through the Future Leaders Program. Use their supplied source inventories and retrieved passages. Connect experiences across places. As a historian, you study and explain the past. A historian is someone who studies the past. Honor residents’ voices. Shape an interactive story for partner audiences. Share the finished work with those partners, peers, and community members as your clients.
Phase Overview
Phase
Key Experiences
Discover
I can compare interactive Chicago maps with labels to identify how outsider storytelling hides residents’ experiences.
Examine
I can compare inventories and passages as a historian to explain outsider control and missing perspectives.
Engineer
I can develop an interactive place-story for Chicago audiences. That means how you arrange the parts of a story. I can use passages, partner experiences, and peer decisions.
Do
I can invite first-time users to try my experience. I can record responses. I can measure changed place perceptions. Perception means how someone sees or understands a place.
Share
I can share my interactive story, learning journey, and self-discovery with partners. I can do this through a visitor-led showcase. Story means how you arrange the parts of an experience.
