The idea:
Ann: The original plan to have youth create an autobiographical portrait by completing the sentence "I am the one who..." (a writing activity Rolf and I learned from his poet mother Phebe Hanson) became the biopoems when Mary Theresa suggested we use a lesson/biopoem template that she had found.

Nuts and bolts of the project:
Ann: We created paired handouts with the biopoem template on one and the html code which created the template on the other. Mary Theresa and Jay provided a set of three ring binders for the WYRED group. Youth could refer to these hard copies in their laps and make notes in them as they learned things. This helped solve some of the one-on-one intensive teaching that goes hand in hand with computers. (We have never fully used our WYRED three ring binders to their fullest extent. There never seems to be enough time to create more cheat sheets reference pages for these books. When we do, they will provide an excellent way for the youth to learn how to solve problems instead of always first turning to the adults for an answer. We should probably set aside some WYRED time and have the youth create these reference pages collectively instead of shouldering the burden ourselves. ) The format of the both the content (answering questions) and the html code was simple enough to be a perfect first step into learning how to make web pages. Over the course of the year Mary Theresa worked with many youth on their biopoems at various times during the week not just during the scheduled WYRED times on Wednesday and Friday. This represents success to me when a project is not dependent on the visiting artists but filters into the regular working life of an organization. As much as possible, I also try to encourage youth to turn to each other for answers instead of always turning to me. Building in the idea that they are all teachers themselves, and that along with learning these comes the obligation to teach someone else how to do it. A real issue when working with youth and autobiographical material is to have a clear sense of what is public and what is private about one's story. Creating web pages off-line creates a buffer zone in which youth have time to live with their work and change their mind about what might be private before it is published on-line for the world to see.

Thinking behind the project:
Ann: Last summer my 12 year-old niece visited us. She has grown up without a TV and was naturally fascinated with ours. One evening when we were watching "The Simpsons", the mid-program commercial break began and she turned to her mother and asked, "Is it over?" I was floored. I didn't know there was still a 12 year-old in this country who is not intimate with the rhythms of commercial television. At this point in my life I can flip around during the commercial break and come back to a show just as it's fading up from black. The timing is so ingrained in me. To re-imagine the media-scape requires critical consciousness. In the past, the term critical consciousness has overwhelmed me. I thought of it in terms of all the information in which I need to situate myself. With media it meant considering the content, the form, the relationship with the dominant media world, the politics of electricity, the means of production and distribution, the relationship to past work, to name a few. Freire's book Education and Critical Consciousness reminded me that critical consciousness is not a body of knowledge, it is the act of thinking. To have relationships is to be human. When faced with a challenge, to choose a strategy and to act is to be conscious. To look at the world today and back to yesterday and into tomorrow is to be critical. This is how Freire defines critical consciousness. What a liberating thought. In the electronic media world re-imagining the media-scape involves becoming producers in a culture geared toward consumers. In the 1970's, feminist media artists issued the manifesto "...It is time to halt all dealing with the mass media - no more interviews, no more documentaries, no more special coverage... must turn now to the strengthening and expansion of our own media." (Sandoval, p.153)

Looking ahead:
Ann: It is important to balance facilitating other people in creating media work with producing my own media work. I am interested in a model of parallel productions. In a sense that was what I was doing while working in Indian Orchard. While I was facilitating Citizens Against Pollution's pirate radio broadcast, I was also working on a documentary video about their struggle. Working on parallel projects allows me to function as a working role model when I am interacting with community groups. I make videos because I find so much pleasure in the process. Engaging in a parallel production helps me balance what I do for myself and what I do for others. It also keeps me in touch in a visceral way with the hard work involved in creating a successful piece.

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