Wide Angle Youth Media fosters an environment where students think critically about how our world is changing and emphasizes the crucial role youth have in creating change. It’s hard to find any text that represents what our students are doing now better than Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb.” Wide Angle’s virtual event student planners have been hard at work creating everything that’s in store for Wide Angle’s Prom: A Dance Through the Decades. First delving through history and finding key figures and events that aren’t always mentioned in our history books, students then created virtual backgrounds for prom that celebrated these moments in an artistic way. For Janae Young, a senior at Baltimore School for the Arts, the virtual backgrounds signified more than cute screensavers.

“It is important to highlight ALL parts of history and Wide Angle has given me a space to do just that. It has been liberating to be in charge of my own learning and gain knowledge on the things most interesting to me.”

– Janae Young

By providing space and opportunity to explore history they were interested in, students were able to take ownership of the past and feel more confident in their ability to shape the future.

Virtual Backgrounds for Wide Angle’s Prom: A Dance Through the Decades

Students were then asked to come up with who they felt would represent their generation in future history books, and only one name was repeated over and over again: Amanda Gorman. Shahmeer Mirza, a freshman at Carver, said that Gorman was his first pick.

“Amanda Gorman broke that glass ceiling. Youth finally have a voice that is not only similar to us age-wise, but for the vast majority of us is similar in that she is a person of color, and moreover a woman of color. It’s so refreshing that we finally have a voice that mirrors us at such a large scale.”

– Shahmeer Mirza

We decided as a class to create a collaborative artistic work surrounding her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” which represented everything the students believed in. Students created and narrated the piece using a combination of student-filmed and stock footage. For Ellie Mcginley, a freshman at Baltimore City College and incoming sophomore at Baltimore School for the Arts, the project was an opportunity for creative expression in a way she already loved.

“Working on the ‘The Hill We Climb’ video was a great experience. Mixing clips filmed by us students with free clips online created a wonderful blend. I am extremely proud to be a part of Wide Angle, and am looking forward to working on more videos like this one!”

– Ellie Mcginley

While students were more than excited to begin editing and creating a voiceover for the project, some students like Carrie Snowden, a current 10th grader at Baltimore Design School, had never recorded voiceover before.

“When we talked about [Amanda Gorman], and just hearing that she had a speech impediment, I think that really motivated me because from Pre-K to 6th grade I took speech classes for my speech impediment. Doing a voiceover is a situation I never thought I would put myself in. I never imagined myself doing something like that, and so it’s really inspiring.”

– Carrie Snowden

As a former Wide Angle apprentice and now teacher, it is so fulfilling to be able to empower students to create media surrounding social justice and change in the same way I was inspired by Wide Angle nearly half a decade ago. Though the class is labeled “Virtual Event Planning” our work goes beyond just planning events, and our student planners are making sure that Wide Angle’s prom is way more than just a dance. Janae Young summed it up best as to why our planners are so dedicated to planning prom when she said, “The hill we are climbing is about bringing light to historical figures who are often overshadowed. The hill we are climbing is about making an inclusive and fun space for youth during a tough time in history.”

Wide Angle’s Prom: A Dance Through the Decades will be open to all high school students via Zoom, and all other community members will be invited to join prom via live stream! Save the date for May 8th, from 7:00 to 11:00 PM EST. Stay tuned for more details on Wide Angle's social media.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Destiny Brown is a young filmmaker and actress born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She began at Wide Angle as the lead actress for a CSX train safety video, and over the years has transitioned into an Assistant Producer and Youth Ambassador. She is also part of the Youth Advisory Council and wants to be on the Board one day. Destiny has created a national award-winning film, traveled to South Africa to film internationally, and has spoken on numerous panels including Light City and Grantmakers for Education. She attends New York University (NYU), studying acting and theater, while also working as a Video Generalist at the Stern School of Business at NYU.