JC Montgomery school, located in the Kings County Juvenile Center, provides students with multiple arts-based learning opportunities throughout the school year. The majority of students have complex trauma, so this provides an outlet to process what they've gone through, an escape on difficult days, and a place to build community. It has also has impacted those who've heard their stories. JCM students have been nominated for the Princeton Race Relations prize, their work has been used to advocate for increased funding for juvenile court schools, and the Stories with Style lessons are now being taught across the country. All project based learning within the school is done in partnership with Kings County Probation.

Stories with Style teaches students to analyze songs and poetry for style, tone, word choice, and audience/message, and provides them with an outlet to express their own stories through rap music, spoken word poetry, or visual arts design. Additionally, it teaches students the history and impact of Hip Hop in the United States. The lesson series is designed through culturally responsive instructional practices and Hip Hop pedagogy. The lessons embed media arts standards to provide 21st Century skills to students. The foundation of Stories with Style is authentic social-emotional learning support for students through opportunities to use writing as an emotional outlet and to connect and collaborate with others. The project has been featured on several education podcasts, which are linked below. The lessons are available for free use and educators are encouraged to make them their own. It's Not 2 Late was written by two JCM students during the 21-22 school year. It was nominated for a Princeton Race Relations prize and recently won a Davey Award. A supplementary lesson written by Kings County Office of Education consultant Jessica Womack analyzes The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The unit was designed around Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's HILL Framework and is featured in Dr. Muhammad's new book Unearthing Joy.

The Stories with Style team used two frameworks during lesson design. The first was the Ignite, Chunk, Chew, Review model from Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain and the second was Dr. Raphael Travis' Individual and Community Empowerment Framework from his book The Healing Power of Hip-Hop. Both frameworks can be seen below.

Students at JCM may enroll in a career technical education course in multimedia production. Elizabeth Norris and teaching artist Josh "OPTX" Levine facilitate this class with support from JCM staff. This course is done in quarters 2, 3, and 4. During quarter two, students worked with the Music Forward Foundation to learn about industry careers in live production and marketing. They also participated in a beat making workshop with Dr. Elliot Gann of Today's Future Sound. In quarter three, students began by creating promotional videos for some of our nonprofit partners using Adobe Creative Cloud, and are currently learning about music video production. They have been collaborating with local artist Worms Ali to write a piece about a better future in each unit. Local artists will vote on the best song. First and second place units will learn to storyboard and film their own music video. In the fourth quarter, students will create a podcast. They will have guest speakers, including Manny Faces, of podcasts Hip-Hop Can Save America and News Beat. They will also be learning to create short, animated films with pre-apprenticeship partner The Animation Project. Students will also be launching a store selling some of their designs in the near future, so stay tuned for the launch, which will be shared with people on our email list.

In their visual arts class, students have the opportunity to work with trained arts teacher Dawn Sanger. They work on many projects throughout the year, including a community service project with Fresno Skateboard Salvage. Students turn salvaged boards into works of art, which are then auctioned by FSS. The proceeds go to purchasing skateboarding equipment for young people in the community who cannot afford their own. JCM students who complete the community service piece earn a brand new skateboard of their own that they can design. Students have also worked with Urbanists Collective to create a site mural, which can be seen below and will work this spring on an augmented reality social justice piece with the organization.

To connect regarding the resources shared today, please email elizabeth.norris@kingscoe.org

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