Youth Opportunity
Maxwell’s adventure began with a photo of a piece of pottery.
Peering at the image of Frederick Ebenezer Okai’s When the Gods Speak, Heaven Listens, the nine-year-old did what every great writer learns to do: he looked closer. He imagined more. Then he stepped inside the artwork – not literally, but with the kind of wide-open creativity that makes anything possible.
Working alongside a small group of his third-grade peers at Ypsilanti International Elementary School (YIES), he began to imagine a world where a thunder phoenix came down from clouds and mummies chased terrified explorers through a giant pot filled with mysterious creatures. Just in time, a portal to safety materialized to bring everyone home.
For nearly a decade, 826michigan, the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and Ypsilanti Community Schools have partnered to bring every third-grade student into a powerful art-and-writing experience. The program invites students to imagine themselves shrinking down “to the size of a paperclip” and jumping into works of art at the museum. From there, they write adventure stories inspired by what they see – and what they dream up.
“I loved it,” said Maxwell. “I like how I got to use my ideas to make a story.
Whenever I get to write something I’m excited for, I love it,” he exclaimed, adding that this story is now his second favorite writing piece following a comic book he wrote last year.
This year, more than 220 third graders across 13 classrooms participated in Adventuring Through the Art Museum.
No two stories are the same
“We ask students to use their eyes, but also their imagination,” said Megan Gilson, Program Manager at 826michigan. “Kids are the best storytellers because they’re just naturally doing this when they play anyway.”
The rainbow-colored basket of books filled with stories from each classroom group proved there’s no limit to the students’ storytelling prowess.
One group wrote about clouds that smelled like rotten bananas, chicken nugget warriors, a mummy statue named Ramadan and a secret portal hidden inside a paint splatter. Another group imagined falling through the sky, landing on a fluffy cloud, finding an ice cream truck, escaping sharks and discovering treasure “twice as big as the vase.”
The stories are funny, surprising and wildly original. But beneath the flying angel seals covered in ranch and portals opening beside museum vases is something deeper: students practicing literacy, collaboration, public speaking, visual observation and building confidence.
After writing their stories, students see them typed, edited and published in the class booklets. They’re no longer just students completing an assignment – they’re published authors.
This year marked the first time students from Ypsilanti’s new Spanish immersion school, Ypsilanti Puentes Multilingual School, participated. Program materials were translated into Spanish, and Spanish-speaking facilitators helped ensure students could share their ideas in the language that felt most natural to them.
A time to celebrate
Following their initial field trip to the museum, the students return to UMMA with their families for a celebration where they read their work in front of the artwork that inspired it. It’s the culmination of the months-long project and one of the most important moments as the students are celebrated and welcomed into the space.
“We want students to be the leaders,” said Grace VanderVliet, Curator for Museum Teaching and Learning at UMMA. “We want to provide space for these students to take what they see in a book and connect it to a lived, joyful positive experience in the museum that they want to happen again and again.”
At the event, families arrived by bus to UMMA where they gathered under tents, shared food, played games led by United Way staff volunteers, toured the museum and listened as fellow students read their stories aloud to groups of beaming parents and supporters. Some students were nervous. Some were eager. Some needed a little encouragement before finding their voice.
Megan recalled one student from a past year who arrived dressed for the moment – blazer, fedora and a T-shirt that read, “I am Black History.” Before reading, he admitted he was nervous.
“I was like, it’s okay, I’m here with you,” said Megan. “As he started reading, you could see the confidence. You can only gain new skills by doing hard things, and he just proved it to himself in that moment.”
That is part of the magic of the program. It gives students a safe, joyful place to try something brave.
Estabrook Elementary Principal Ryan Johnson loves the program for that reason and more.
“This is a full immersion experience for our students,” he said. “The arts are so important to our students – especially those who may not yet shine academically – it gives them a different way to express themselves. It’s a different way they can excel.”
A day at the museum
The museum experience is designed with that same care. UMMA gallery educators help students engage with art in ways that feel accessible, inclusive and age appropriate.
“We love when students come into the museum and recognize us,” said Njoki Kamuyu, a gallery educator at UMMA and retired special education teacher from Ypsilanti whose career spans two continents.
“Being a gallery educator is so exciting and so rewarding. We get to help students learn and see them navigate a space that many of them have never been in before. It’s just wonderful to watch them grow and make a connection and say ‘Oh, I do know something about that. I am good at this.’”
"We get to help students learn and see them navigate a space that many of them have never been in before."
That sense of ownership and belonging is central to the program’s success.
“I hope they feel expansive,” said Megan. “I hope they can connect the creativity that they have within them to what they see around them. I hope they feel a sense of belonging and welcome in the museum.”
For United Way, this is what partnership looks like at its best: organizations working together to remove barriers, expand access and create experiences that help young people see themselves – and their futures – differently.
Through out-of-school time funding, United Way supports several other 826michigan programs including Teen Leadership Lab – a weekly paid education and employment opportunity for high school students to provide mentorship to the younger student writers; “Wee-Write” drop-in reading and writing sessions for early writers and other writing workshops.
The end is the beginning
For students like 8-year-old Chloe Adams this project marks a significant turning point – when her ideas are not only documented but validated and nurtured.
“Once I got to know what this was about, I loved it,” said Chloe as she prepared to read her story aloud. “This was really cool. I think I can basically do anything now.”
That feeling – I can basically do anything now – may be the most important outcome of all.
Because long after the tents come down, the books are packed away and the museum quiets, students will carry home something bigger than any art piece: the memory of being heard. The understanding that their ideas matter. The confidence that they belong in spaces filled with art, creativity and possibility.
Perhaps years from now they will still remember the moment when they stepped inside of a piece of art and discovered something even more important inside themselves.
Visit our Youth Opportunity page to learn more about how we’re investing in brighter futures. You can help expand access to new experiences by making a donation today.
