The PRYSE of New Experiences

I am Sreemoyee Dasgupta, a final year graduate student in the Department of English currently finishing my dissertation. My dissertation project lies at the intersection of childhood studies and postcolonial studies, while my broader interests lie in Victorian literature, popular culture, global literature and culture, and race and empire. As a humanities scholar, I have always been very aware of the difference between how we study the disciplines as part of a university curriculum and how humanistic thought is dispersed throughout the larger society. Entering the discipline, one of my long-term goals has always been to try to bridge the gap between Humanities academia and society, and the Humanities Engage summer immersive fellowship program seemed to be the perfect way to both build those bridges and diversify my work experience.

As a children’s literature and childhood studies researcher, I had been wanting to find ways to translate my interest in diverse histories of childhood and socio-cultural identity into a productive contribution to the lived experiences of children. I became a literary scholar because of my love for narratives and because I perceived the usefulness of literary and language education for both children and communities at large. After my finishing my Masters in India, I volunteered for a year with Make a Difference, an NGO which focuses on increasing English language literacy skills among underprivileged urban child populations, to supplement the schooling these children had been receiving and help make them more competitive in India’s ruthless job markets.

ARYSE Pittsburgh, the nonprofit organization that hosted my fellowship, similarly works with refugee children and youth in the Pittsburgh area, helping to acclimatize them to an unfamiliar country, a new language and culture, and an unfamiliar education system. ARYSE offers afterschool activities, clubs, and groups during the school year, and I helped with their PRYSE (Pittsburgh Refugee Youth Summer Enrichment) Academy, which took place for 5 weeks between July 5 and August 7, 2021. I was tasked with supporting the creation of evaluation and assessment protocols, which would allow the organization to get feedback about the efficacy of their summer school programming and about improvements which should be made for the future. In short, I collected data from children about PRYSE 2021 and used that to create a report for ARYSE. This report will be used for accountability purposes, for improving the program, and for reporting to their donors and any grants they may be applying for in the future.

My dissertation, which I defended on August 2, 2021, is grounded in historical and literary analysis. I had never done ethnographic or quantitative work previously, so this immersive proved to be an enormous learning experience. I collected data using a few methods, including surveys (through Survey Monkey), focus groups, classroom observations, and writing assessment exercises. I also attended the training sessions provided for PRYSE Academy counselors, which were very helpful because they included workshops on talking to children, trauma, mental health, how to overcome resistive practices, etc. My training as a teacher and a researcher was crucial through the process of developing the surveys and writing assignments. Curriculum planning was also a skill I utilized as I incorporated the data collection into the classroom as seamlessly as possible, with the least amount of disruption to the children. Working with ARYSE not only developed and expanded the skills I had been developing as a doctoral student, but it also allowed me to start thinking about my long-term goals of making my work a contribution to and accessible to society at large.

Sreemoyee Dasgupta
English
September 2021
 
Learn about all the Pitch Your Own Summer Immersive Fellows and Curated Immersive Summer Fellows and their experiences with their host organizations.