CityFolk Institute on Folklife in Education
Wright State University
June 30-July 10, 2003

Teachers can become folklorists this summer when the Wright State University Institute on Writing and Teaching teams with the 2003 CityFolk Festival to host a workshop entitled, “CityFolk Institute on Folklife in Education,” from Monday, June 30, through Thursday, July 10, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day. The program combines coursework at WSU with exciting hands-on experience at the CityFolk Festival for teachers involved in language arts, social studies or humanities.

The program will give teachers the chance to use the analytical and documentary tools of a folklorist during the 2003 CityFolk Festival on Saturday, July 5, and Sunday, July 6, so they can devise classroom lessons based on these skills for their students. Participants will study and use oral history methods to interview folk artists.

“Teachers will observe and document performances and craft traditions as part of the festival,” says Marjorie McLellan, Ph.D., associate professor of history and director of WSU’s Master’s of Public History program. “They will learn how to interview people about their lives, culture, traditions and histories as a member of a folk group. They might interview a banjo player about how she learned to play or her experiences as a performer, or a cook about the ethnic background of his cooking.”

The course will also examine the ethnic groups and the migrations that have populated Ohio and the Miami Valley, as well as the music and artistic traditions of these groups.

“This course will give teachers a link to the community and a powerful option for real-world writing for their students,” says Nancy Mack, Ph.D., associate professor of English at Wright State.

The 2003 faculty includes Carolyn Mazloomi, nationally acclaimed quilt artist, lecturer and author of Spirits of the Cloth; Tony Ellis, bluegrass musician, composer and leader of the ensemble Tony Ellis and the Musicians of Braeburn; and McLellan, author of Hunting for Everyday History: A Field Guide for Teachers.

The workshop offers four hours of graduate credit from Wright State. Scholarships are available to participants not currently enrolled in a graduate program at WSU. These scholarships cover 50 percent of the Ohio resident tuition charge.

The workshop is co-sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council, in partnership with CityFolk in Dayton, a nationally recognized traditional arts organization that sponsors many public programs. Marjorie McLellan directs the Public History Program at Wright State University.