English Department Students Bring Hands-on Experience to Sunrise High School

English Department undergraduate students, Eden Marroquín, Yasamin Osqueezadeh, and Ella Stott visited Sunrise High School in Brigham City on Friday, February 7 to present research, teach students how to explore archives, and provide hands-on research experience. The high school students were able to collaborate and look into different businesses, restaurants, and hotels in Utah as part of the undergraduate humanities lab looking at the history of African American travel safety guides in Utah.  

Professor Christine Cooper-Rompato, who is the faculty mentor of the lab, was invited to present to the history class by teachers Heather Watts and Kurt Moulton because of her paper and subsequent appearance on KUTV on the Green Book, one of the travel safety guides, in Utah. She extended the presentation to Eden, Yasamin, and Ella, and the group decided to include the students in the hands-on part of the research.  

“Part of why Kurt and I organized this is because there’s a huge value in students being able to get out into the community, but a lot of times they don’t have the resources or even the adult guidance to be able to get them there,” Heather comments. “So, for the group to come here and open their world to things they had never thought of and explored — I could see it in their faces, and I could hear it in their comments. It was incredibly valuable.” 

Kurt noted that having the USU English Department students in their classroom complemented other activities the students had been doing, such as visiting the Special Collections and Archives at the Merrill-Cazier Library, by allowing the high schoolers to see how social studies could be applied outside of the classroom. “I think this was really important because they didn’t just lecture, they actually brought something that engaged the students with historical research practices and let it come alive to them,” Kurt reflects. “This was a great opportunity to talk about the Green Book because a lot of students don’t know much about segregation, and they certainly don’t know much about the Green Book. So, we really appreciate Dr. Rompato and the students coming and educating the kids.” 

For Ella, collaborating with the students and working together to uncover difficult-to-find images, articles, or newspaper mentions was impactful in her own journey with the research project. “At first, a lot of the students were frustrated by not being able to find anything, and we explained that Black history in Utah especially is understudied, which is why what they were doing was so important and powerful,” she says. “They were determined to find information and further this project. Many even kept working when we’d tell them to take a break. It was incredible to see each student find something that we could contribute to our project. It was especially rewarding to me that these students will get credit for helping — their names are going to be on the museum exhibits we’re working on. It makes me so excited to continue the project and use what these students have found to memorialize this important piece of Utah history.” 

In addition to presenting their own research and working with students on the project, there was a Q&A session with the English Department students for the high schoolers to ask any questions about higher education, research, and history. “This was an incredible experience,” Yasamin reflects. “These kids were very enthusiastic about college and research. They asked a lot of questions and contributed quite a bit to our project. I’m happy I got the experience to work with them!” 

Christine, Eden, Yasamin, and Ella are continuing their project of compiling their research to create traveling museum exhibits for the Sema Hadithi African American Heritage and Culture Foundation. Christine commented their time at Sunrise helped the project get new leads on information they’d previously had a hard time finding. “I think it was incredibly inspiring to work with these young people who found all sorts of amazing documents, from recordings to postcards to newspaper clippings, and they helped us so much with filling in a lot of these gaps with businesses we are trying to find,” she says. “I just want to thank Heather and Kurt for inviting us. It just made me really excited for the future of undergraduate research.”