Academic Enrichment Grant

 2022-2023 Project Summary

Sabra Lawson

Austin Achieve Middle School • Austin, TX

This project is an after school program designed to build community and provide students with an opportunity to develop 21st century skills. The goal is to foster student curiosity, creativity, and confidence, while helping students develop literacy, performance, and technical skills they can utilize throughout their lives. Students often enter this school an average of two grade levels behind. Understandably, the priority throughout their education often becomes “closing the gap” and ensuring they have the foundational skills needed to perform academically. Unfortunately, this often leaves little time during their school day for students to pursue their own passions, or to develop additional practical skills that they can use in our increasingly digital world.

Through this program, scholars will have an opportunity to further their writing, research, communication, and public speaking abilities. They will also learn about the tenets of media literacy and journalism by fulfilling the roles of videographers, film editors, news anchors, performers, producers, and journalists working to keep their peers informed about what is taking place in the school and community. The club will be open to students in fifth through eighth grade and will meet four days a week for 75 minutes each day. They will produce one episode per month to be viewed by the student body on the last Friday of each month.

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