Abstract
Graphic design students partnered in cross-disciplinary practice, exploring creative learning tools as part of a larger initiative to preserve the Cherokee language for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. Over several years undergraduate graphic design students at Western Carolina University collaborated with the New Kituwah Academy Elementary, a Cherokee language immersion campus in western North Carolina and, most recently, with the Cherokee Language Program at WCU. The goals have been to design and develop a range of tools/activities for learning the Cherokee language. The collaborating partners selected the topics, wrote the narratives (the scripts), and recorded the voice-overs provided by Cherokee Elders fluent in the language. The topics ranged in subjects including experiences while shopping, animals indigenous to the southern Appalachian region, learning about shapes and using them to make animals and seeing shapes in a landscape, learning about five human senses, and understanding the unique use of action words in the language. The media formats the design students used were both digital and physical: a board game, a card game, animations, a web-based interactive site, and large 4 by 8 feet interactive wall pieces. Empirical evidence gathered as the partnerships evolved informed the media formats used, prompted forms of assessment, expanded the collaboration with university second-language learners, and broadened the scope of evaluating the works to include the design students and their design process.
Presenters
Mary Anna La FrattaProfessor, School of Art and Design, Western Carolina University, North Carolina, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Cherokee, Cross-Disciplinary, Design, Education, Design Process, Experiential Learning, Interactive, Language
