Assignment/Activity Title — CSPAN StudentCam Documentary

Year — Sophomore

Portfolio Competency — Social Awareness

Skill(s) — Research, Writing, Group Dynamic, Social and Ethical Awareness

The CSPAN StudentCam documentary project is an annual competition that encourages students to investigate
and share a variety of issues in the world around them. The 2021 competition was centered around the prompt “explore
the issue you most want the president and new Congress to address in 2021.” The goal of this project was to use filming
and editing skills developed in freshman and sophomore year to create a compelling 5-6 minute documentary on the
subject of choice. My group created a documentary titled “Making it to Motherhood,” which focuses on the racial
disparities in obstetrics and gynecology. We researched our topic, created a script, contacted and interviewed numerous
experts, filmed and gathered b-roll, decided on music, created animated graphics, and edited it together to create our final
documentary.
To produce an effective and informative documentary, we had to conduct extensive research so we could fully
understand our topic. We originally selected the topic from an Instagram post that only had a brief overview, so we were
quickly overwhelmed by the amount of information and wide variety of subtopics within the subject. Instead of allowing
this to deter us, we simply had to hone our research on the aspects we thought were most prominent and would have the
greatest impact. After establishing a solid foundation in research, we began to write our script. It was crucial that it was
concise and well-written as we needed to conform to the documentary’s time limit while making sure we thoroughly
explained the heavy and complex content. Coming into the project, I was most apprehensive about the group aspect.
Having completed CSPAN and other similar assignments in the past, I knew that I could become controlling and attempt
to manage each aspect of the project. At some stages of the project, I definitely took on more responsibility than I needed
to, but overall the workload was delegated well. My group worked well together, with each of us taking a major section of
the project. This allowed us to complete our work in a timely manner and create a cohesive documentary, despite the
challenges of working and communicating in a virtual environment.
The final and most critical skill for this project was social and ethical awareness. Our documentary focused on
three main lenses: patient mistrust, practitioner bias, and socioeconomic disparities. As a white individual, I knew I would
have my own implicit biases on some of the subject matter, and I worked to combat them throughout the project. Our
research mostly covered the experiences of Black women in the United States and my group members and I attempted to
understand and empathize with their stories. We were fortunate to be granted five incredible interviews with doctors
across the country, three of whom were women of color. The stories and statistics of the perpetual mistreatment of Black
women, from forced sterilizations to fatal denial of care were shocking and helped us to realize the existence of a level of
the United States’ racism that is rarely discussed. There were numerous stories of women who were entirely unaware that
they, along with their unborn child, were in danger at the hands of the doctors they placed their trust in. Amid a global
pandemic, it became clear why many U.S. citizens of color are reluctant to trust the doctors and vaccinations that white
citizens automatically put their faith in.
Samantha Jaffe 3/18/21
Student Signature Date

Mr. Mayo 3/18/21

Teacher Signature Date