‘You’re staying here’: How journalism skills help kids learn in Beaufort

Beaufort has many stories to tell and many ways in which to tell them. Those stories are sometimes best captured by children, oddly enough, and even the next generation of Beaufortonians needs help cultivating those storytelling techniques.

Now, with educational workshops led by professional journalists and businesspeople through the “Backpack Journalist” program, children in Beaufort and other areas of the Lowcountry are getting the chance to experience documentary photography, collection of oral histories, and real-world journalism as young as third and fourth grade.

“I like to grab them early,” said program founder Linda Dennis. “That’s when they get attached.”

Initially, the “they” who got attached to the program were a group of children in military families who had trouble telling their deployed parents how much they missed them. Something was missing in their ability to tell their own story, including how to emote through the written word. Dennis knew there was a void she could help fill.

It was in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where she first got the chance to hone her philosophy of using a curriculum-based writing program to help children better express themselves. This led, in 2010, to the formal formation of A Backpack Journalist, LLC, following a year of successful pilot test programs and support from the Texas National Guard Youth Council and the National Guard of Texas Military Family Support Foundation.

When military funding ran dry in 2013, Dennis returned to her home in Charleston and pondered a next step. After a conversation with Joe Riley, the former Charleston mayor’s imploring words — “you’re staying here” — resonated with Dennis.

Bringing the program’s expertise to Sanders-Clyde Elementary in the Charleston peninsula, she soon found herself telling students in an after-school program to “find something you’re interested in and cover the story.” That, in turn, led to entire classes of children experiencing Riverdogs baseball games and the James Island Christmas Lights and bringing the larger community inside the school — all in the name of journalistic exploration and following a story.

Her own story, however, has now led to forays into Beaufort.

Most Sunday afternoons, you can find Dennis on St. Helena Island behind the Gullah Grub restaurant, working with children to edit a script for the Penn Center Heritage Days play. When the play is produced, these same children will film the performance and make it available for future generations.

“Beaufort has a lot of assets,” said Dennis. “We have researched the town through the theme of ‘yesterday, today and tomorrow.’ “

Past projects here include filming the history of the S.C. Ports Authority, a short movie on TCL’s Mather School, and helping Beaufort Academy establish a school newspaper.

In November, however, Dennis and her team will also finish a student-produced video that captures the oral history of the founding of Riverview Charter School. Working with teacher Lisa Clancy and a group of elementary students at the school, Dennis is helping with everything from laying out storyboards and gathering interviews as part of an ongoing and thorough creative process.

“Writing can be intimidating, so we try to make it fun,” said Dennis.

Usually, children are introduced to the creative process by researching one “fun” topic and one serious topic. While collecting the oral histories of the school with the school founders, students at Riverview will learn skills like basic interviewing, narrative writing, and digital filmmaking, photography and editing on their iPads. All of it will help them discover their creativity and lead to something that may last a lifetime. The final product will be screened at the S.C. Charter Schools Association conference in November.

“Something within our program lights something within them in the learning process,” said Dennis. “We can hit on a kaleidoscope of abilities.”

Though the program exists financially through grants and private donations, the value of giving a child confidence — what Dennis calls a self-esteem booster to say “look what I’ve found I can do” — is priceless.

So when network news anchors Lester Holt or Norah O’Donnell are gone, they might be replaced by someone who got their start creating stories out of the notebooks and cameras they can stuff in a backpack. The writing and tech skills they learned as a child growing up in Beaufort and surrounding islands could be put to good use on a national stage.

This story was originally published October 3, 2019 at 12:30 PM.