Counter-narrative & Story Maps Project: Contemporary Cultural Geography
For my Contemporary Cultural Geography class at UT-Austin (Fall 2018) carried several distinguishing “flags,” such as Independent Inquiry, Cultural Diversity, and a Writing Emphasis Flags.
I pride myself on creating diverse projects for my classes that encourage a critical research ethos and provide my student’s with new skills. For this class, I designed their first project as a “Counter-narrative Walking Tour” that included the use of story maps. Through independent research, students chose a place-specific counter-narrative to tell in their home town or Austin, TX through an informative “virtual walking tour” (via story maps). The counter-narratives could be cultural, social, political, etc., for example: marginalized populations, youth, subcultures, historical events, regional/local foods, industries, activism, etc. Treat yourself to a few of these compelling Counter-Narratives Story Maps below. *Note the story maps are only part of the larger project. |
(Partial) Project Overview :
Based off of Jennifer Tosch’s story of creating Black Heritage Tours in New York State, Amsterdam, and (soon) Brussels, choose either your home town or Austin to 1) write a counter-narrative walking tour and 2) create a complimentary tour map (interactive/multimedia welcome) – together creating a counter-narrative to the dominate urban history.
Your counter-narrative and accompanying map should include 5 specific landmarks on your tour. These can include landmarks that have a denied/silenced/less known story than the dominant one; sites that are missing/forgotten/not highlighted; etc. |
Photo used under Creative Commons from edson.ac