UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #750

Research Tasks A research methodology I am calling ‘crafting with’ will be used to explore programs affiliated with The Clearing Folk School in Door County, Wisconsin, that address craft pedagogies over time from 1955-2023. Crafting with uses thinking and making as a means to engage craft pedagogies, or relational teaching practices between learners, educators, researchers, artists, materials, animals, land, plants, sky, and more in “conversation” with each other and The Clearing. Crafting with facilitates becoming when unforeseen invitations lure the thinkers and makers* away from The Clearing and toward unconventional ways of knowing, being, and doing. Crafting with includes three phases. First, data from The Clearing programs (program covers and years, teacher names, and class title and description) will be entered into a spreadsheet application (in progress). Second, data will be analyzed on the topic of historical craft pedagogies. Specifically, interactions between self, research assistants, and relevant program data will be documented through craft to co-craft meanings about relevant pedagogies, illuminating what craft was taught, how it was taught, for how long, and by whom. Finally, findings will be produced on the topic of historical and contemporary craft pedagogies to emphasize how and why craft comes to matter.
*In this case, the thinkers and makers are the research mentor (Dr. Amber Ward), research assistant supervisor (Hsin Fang), and the proposed undergraduate research assistant (TBD).