Project Recuerdo
Our stories are powerful.
Project Recuerdo is a family and community engagement project in which families share their experiential knowledge through the oral tradition of storytelling.
After the family shares a story with the student, an account of the conversation is recorded in a keepsake-writing journal and returned to school. Following this, the teacher creates a lesson from the content of these journal entries in order to validate the culturally and linguistically diverse communities that exist within the classroom and to make curricula connections.
Roots run deep...
"The family and cultural stories Lopez collected in her grandparents’ kitchen and her self-discovery research moved her to incorporate her students’ family knowledge and cultural histories into her classroom. She developed an annual family engagement activity, Project Recuerdo, in which students interview family members and journal about their experiences. That rich storytelling informs Lopez’s curriculum and instruction throughout the year."
~Hannah Fletcher, CU Boulder
Michelle López is a fifth grade teacher at Garden Place Academy in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. She leads Project Recuerdo, a family engagement initiative that capitalizes on stories, identity, and cultural richness. When she designed this project, she remembered her grandparents and the countless stories they shared with her. Their accounts proved priceless in both her personal life and in the classroom, as "these personal narratives mapped the way through struggle, success, loss, triumph and happiness."
In a fight against deficit-based thinking, Ms. Lopez created Project Recuerdo to give accessibility to all families and to validate their current skills and knowledge. Cultural capital of marginalized communities goes unrecognized in dominant systems that uphold monolingualism and white middle class values such as relationship dynamics and traditional methods of family engagement. Project Recuerdo challenges bias and prejudice, humanizes community members and connects all stakeholders.