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Abstract: Exploring Personhood: Using Narrative to Teach Archival Literacy and DEI
Undergraduates are comfortable with compiling biographical narratives because they have been doing them since elementary school. But those were written about the famous or exceptional (and mostly men), not average or marginalized people. The Learning Lab at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center is a high-impact undergraduate research internship that provides students with unique opportunities to explore archives and primary source research. In one three-week learning module the use of biographical narrative is employed to teach students how to search archival records and databases, but this exercise proved to be an even greater opportunity to better understand African American experiences in the 19th and 20th centuries. In a partnership with the Lexington African American Cemetery #2, students selected names of those buried there to compile research on each person. The project culminated in a field trip to the cemetery to discuss student findings, reflect on experiences, and clean the graves of those they researched. This poster will explore project impacts and student outcomes from employing a comfortable assignment format for challenging terrain.