KNOWING YOUR HISTORY

When we learn history in school, we often learn about the big events, events that shaped our country, events such as wars or depressions. Often what is left out is the history that happened in your own backyard. Knowing your local history is just as important as knowing the "big stuff." Local histories shape who you are and how you see the world. Local histories connect a community's past, present, and future. This inspiration uses photography and words to connect you to your place.

Find pictures of your town from the past. Visit your local:

• Museum
• Historical Society
• University

A great place to find pictures of your community that are in the public domain is through Wikimedia.

Pick out a few favorites.

(Pictured - Mount Zion Baptist Church 1921)

• Visit the place in your town where the photograph you chose was taken.
• Take a current photograph. Try to get the new picture from the exact same angle.

(Pictured - Mount Zion Baptist Church 2021)

If you are a technology wizard you can combine these two photos into one. If you are not a technology wizard:

• Look at the two photos (old and current) side by side
• What do you see? What do you think? What do you notice? What do you know?
• How are these two pictures alike? How are they different?
• Write your thoughts in a writer's notebook, journal, or on a piece of paper
• Try Juxtapose Lab to overlay your pictures

• Write a poem - free verse
• Write a poem - use a mentor text - Suggested mentor text Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon
• Songs as mentor texts - The House that Built Me (change it to The Town That Built Me) or Dear Old House That I Grew Up In (change to Dear Old Town That I Grew Up In)

Another option is to use the older photos and the new photos to make a collage.

• Collage Lesson Plan
• Make a Collage
• Digital Collage

Oklahoma State University Writing Project ~Writing the Past, Changing the Future

Greenwood Cultural Center

John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park

The Black Wall Street Gallery

The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and Its Legacy: Exploring Place as Text

The Massacre of Black Wall Street

• Place and Poetry
• National Writing Project
• Place-Based Writing Resources
• Nebraska Writing Project
• Place-Based Pedagogy and the Creative Writing Classroom

• Rephotography on Instagram
• Rephotography on Twitter
• A Story in Two Pictures
• How to combine photographs

Share your stories online using #writeout or email them to me at shelleymartinyoung@gmail.com. Don't forget to share them with your community, friends, and family.

Write Out Website ~ writeout.nwp.org

The photographs used in this project are courtesy of:

• Ruth Sigler Avery Collection - Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Department ofSpecial Collections and Archives, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.
• Unsplash.com
• Wikimedia