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POETIC LICENSE Outreach Campaign By producer David Yanofsky I come from an education background, so when I started making films, my vision was infused with the idea that they would ultimately be used for educational purposes. I wanted the films to be catalysts providing the initial spark that could engage students and set them off on a journey of discovery.
The film debuted on public television stations in April 2001, and is airing again this fall, as part of stations' back-to-school efforts. Feeding off the momentum and publicity of the broadcast, the goal now is to work with local schools and youth groups to implement the accompanying materials. In designing an outreach plan, we were faced with a significant challenge: the newness of the teen poetry movement. Unlike a film about abortion rights or the death penalty, for example, which can tap into a highly developed network of activists, POETIC LICENSE captures a movement as it unfolds, with little national infrastructure already in place. This challenge, though, is also part of the excitement - we have the opportunity to help build a national grassroots network of youth poets and educators from the ground up. I liken our outreach efforts to an ambitious seed-planting program; we're sowing the beginnings of a national youth poetry movement in hundreds of communities across the country and hope to see it blossom in the coming years.
Aside from funding and coordinating the national broadcast of POETIC LICENSE, ITVS has been a key player in the outreach component as well. From the outset, Jim Sommers, ITVS's outreach director, recognized the potential impact of the film and has worked to maximize the program's reach. To that end, ITVS helped create a viewer's guide, which includes discussion points, sample writing exercises, and a "how-to" guide for putting on a poetry slam. Ten thousand guides were printed and are being distributed to teachers and youth groups all over the country. In addition, this past fall ITVS offered nearly $20,000 worth of mini grants to PBS stations interested in creating outreach events tied to the POETIC LICENSE broadcast. The National Center for Outreach, a relatively new organization that works with PBS stations, also offered grants to help with local efforts. A wide range of proposals came in through these initiatives. While KQED in San Francisco hosted two large teacher training workshops, Wisconsin Public Television initiated a year-long project around the film. Partnered with the 4-H club, the station will bring in youth leaders from around the state to participate in a series of poetry workshops. Armed with the curriculum packet, as well as knowledge of how to integrate spoken word poetry, these youth leaders will return to their cities and towns to work with their peers, spreading the poetic movement through teen poetry slams and other non competitive events. These efforts will culminate in a statewide poetry event in June 2002. Much of the groundwork for ITVS's outreach goes through its Community Connections Project (CCP). Strategically dispersed in nearly a dozen cities, the CCP folks provide invaluable help in targeting local groups and partners. In Atlanta and Philadelphia, for example, they not only helped coordinate the events, but in both cases, were able to put us in touch with an important contact at the school district. The event could therefore serve as a kickoff for the local TV broadcast as well as a "calling card" into the school system.
Another valuable tool in our outreach effort is the web. We launched the POETIC LICENSE website in conjunction with the film's debut last spring. In addition to the standard film related sections (broadcast times, viewer comments, bios, etc.) we also created the site as an online resource for spoken word poetry. Specifically, the Youth Voice section provides young writers with a monthly online poetry journal, a list of youth literary organizations around the country, and a discussion board. The Teacher's Lounge is geared towards educators and contains writing exercises and other spoken word resources. Through a generous grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, we are also set to launch the innovative Poet-to-Poet web project this fall. Housed in the Teacher's Lounge, this program will allow teachers to find a partner class in another part of the country so that their students can share work and edit each other. The final poems will be published on the website. And as we expand the reach of the project through programs like this, we hope that each poem becomes a seed, giving further life to the youth poetic movement. |
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