Monique Dykstra
Monique Polak
Joel Silverstein
Carolyn Marie Souaid
The Quebec Roots project is a free education programme offered by Blue Metropolis Foundation with the support of the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport, the Canada Council for the Arts, LEARN and CLC.
School boards are asked to cover the teachers' release and their travel and accommodation expenses for the two-day orientation meeting that is held in Montreal at the beginning of the project.
► Blue Met will send a letter to your school board so they can approve the terms of your participation.
► Your registration will be finalized when your school board has agreed to cover the costs associated with your participation.
N.B. This timetable is subject to change.
■ October 13 & 14, 2011 - Preparation - Orientation days in Montreal
Teachers will attend a two-day preparatory meeting to become familiar with the project structure and the technology used for videoconferencing and collaboration. In most cases, this session will also give teachers the opportunity to meet the author and photographer with whom they will be working.
Teachers will receive support materials and a project guide. The guide will offer suggestions, options and possible approaches to developing and managing the project in the classroom. Teachers will use the project materials to develop learning scenarios and to carry out appropriate activities with their students. At all times, the teachers will be the ones making decisions regarding the selection and development of specific activities in their classroom.
There will be technical support to set up videoconferences.
■ November - December 2011
Project planning in the classes:
Back in the classroom, teachers will use the project materials and other resources to brainstorm and discuss the concept of community with their class. Students will start writing and taking pictures.
Preliminary texts and photos must be sent to the authors and the photographers before scheduling their first visit.
First meeting between the author, the photographer, the teacher and the class. One full day in class.
Each group will participate in an in-class or online workshop with the author and photographer. The guide provides suggestions to prepare for this exchange. During this initial meeting, the author and photographer will draw on their own work and experience. They will share their ideas about the creative process.
■ November 2011 to March 2012: Book Production
Online meeting space
There will be an online meeting space where classes will be able to share their work and have exchanges with their author and photographer. Students will be able to communicate with the author and photographer on an occasional basis. Individual teachers will decide on the roles and responsibilities within their own classroom.
Creation of the photos and texts
Once they have taken photographs and written texts, students will make a mock-up of their pages for the book and send them to their author and photographer to give them time to review the material before the closing videoconference.
Students will also send the original material - the text, photographs and a first draft of their layout - to Blue Metropolis. A graphic designer will use the students' ideas for the final design.
■ January 2012: Closing videoconference
Before the last modifications of their work, each class will have a one-hour, online or face-to-face session with the author and photographer. The focus of the dialogue during the videoconference will be the content of the students' drafts, and they will receive feedback from the author and the photographer.
■ Thursday, April 19, 2012: Book launch
A group of students from each class will have the opportunity to participate in the launch of the book at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival.
■ May 2012: Assessment
Written evaluation by all participants.
Ecole Luke Mettaweskum School
Nemaska, James Bay, QC
Teacher: Victoria Howard
Cree School Baord
Pierre Elliot Trudeau Elementary School
Gatineau, QC
Teacher: Lisa Howell
Western Quebec School Board
FACE High School
Montreal, QC
Teacher: Kristen O’Sullivan
Montreal School Board
Innalik School
Inukjuak, QC
Teacher: Crystal Speedie
Kativik School Board
New Carlisle High School
New Carlisle, QC
Teacher: Rose Marie Roussy
Eastern Shore School Board
St-Paul’s School
St-Paul’s River, QC
Teacher: Gail McDonald and Paulette Willcott
Littoral School Board
Audience: Elementary, Secondary schools
Language: English
Duration of the activity: October 2011 to May 2012
Cost: Free
Partners: MELS, Canada Council for the Arts, LEARN, Community Learning Centers, Amazon.ca
Quebec Roots: The Place Where I Live allows students across Quebec to create a book of photographs and texts about their community. Classrooms that are geographically distant from one another are grouped together and students can create their books for peer readers, their parents and the general public.
Students will be asked a key question that will prompt their creativity and lead to a structure for their book: How would you describe your community to people who have never visited it?
As a means of exploring their responses to this question, students will look at various photographs and discuss how they create atmosphere, show relationships, and illustrate ideas or concepts. In the pre-production phase of the project, students will use the author's writing, the photographer's work, and their own, to develop the kinds of photographs and writing that will be included in their book.
Quebec Roots: The Place Where I Live was developed in close collaboration with the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport. Since 2005, the programme has brought together professional writers and photographers with young Anglophones across Quebec to stimulate their creative and critical skills, and to develop their awareness about some of the ways in which Anglophones and their communities contribute to Quebec's cultural diversity. The programme aims to encourage teamwork and foster an exploration of identity through a close look at the communities in which young people live.
Students from schools all over the province have participated in the programme, including schools in the Lower North Shore, Nunavik, James Bay, the Eastern Townships, and Montreal.
The Quebec Roots project had its own blog in 2010-2011. Read what the authors and photographs who worked with the students had to say about their experience.
Listen to children and teachers talk about the project on CBC Radio.
Click here to read excerpts from last year’s edition.
What the teachers from last year had to say:
“It was a memorable experience that changed my students’ lives. It gave them confidence to write when some of them hated it. It changed their outlook about writing.”
Melinda Cochrane, teacher at Beaconsfield High School
“It gave them a purpose for writing. It motivated them and made writing meaningful. It really opened new horizons for the kids.”
Cloann Frechette, teacher at Shawinighan High School
• Involvement in the project represents approximately a total of 30 to 40 hours of work.
• Length of the first workshop in class is a full day. Teachers have to clear their students’ schedules for the visit of the author and the photographer.
• We ask teachers who want to register to have good skills in technology and photography. Technical support will be provided but teachers have to be very comfortable with new technologies or very willing to learn.
• Teachers must obtain signed permission slips for each participant.
Teachers who are interested in having their students participate in the project should be prepared to create and guide students through multiple tasks and learning situations.
As such, teachers should have the ability to:
• Help the class narrow down the theme they have chosen into something realistic and manageable given the timeframe;
• Assign tasks that will generate writing samples that illustrate the students' unique definition of community;
• Ask appropriate questions to elicit focused writing samples;
• Generate activities that will elicit writing that represents the authentic voice of their students;
• Have a clear vision but also be flexible enough to step back and see where a spontaneous suggestion or moment of creative inspiration takes the project;
• Have a good comprehension of photographic composition and editing.
