Tag: StoryMaps

Creative Cartography: The City as Site of Cultural Production

Susanna Horng
New York University

Gallery Project Statement

This digital pedagogy presentation explores the use of ESRI Story Maps in a core writing course to synthesize primary and secondary research, to visualize data, to present an interactive, city-based narrative, and to create a digital humanities project early in the undergraduate experience.

ESRI Story Maps, which uses ArcGIS software, enables students to integrate maps with written text, images, videos, links, and sound in an online environment. This web application provides a rich, multilayered platform for students to flex their creativity and critical thinking.

The assignment asked students to design and research their own Story Map projects on a subject of their choice and to develop narratives at the intersection of place, location, geography, and culture over a two-month period. Students worked with Data Services Specialists from the university library to learn the ESRI Story Maps software, then workshopped their prototypes multiple times in small groups and with the entire class before presenting their final projects at the end of the semester.

This slide presentation features examples of student research projects, including policy brutality against women of color, the interrogation of blackness, and non-profit organizations supporting victims of child sex trafficking.