ABSTRACT
Charter schools represent complex issues of school 'choice' in the United States, often reviled for the ways whiteness, privilege, and increasing inequities are tied up in what many see as the privatization of public schools and funds. The videos that children made for this project were critically aware. The projects themselves fostered innovative and sometimes risky language and literacy practices. The tone of the videos varied widely, from the maudlin (with sentimental music, long pans of photographs of groups of smiling children) to the upbeat, with lively music and silly interviews (and bloopers!). The quality of the videos also varied widely. While some children had made videos with us before, these were made in more unsettled and unstructured times. This chapter focuses primarily on the video interviews that students used in their digital videos, which demonstrated their school's value to explore initial, content-oriented question about what children valued about their school.
