The documentary is presented to the Franco-American Heritage Center

for its archives.

LEWISTON – Eighth-grade students in Michel Courchesne’s French class at Lewiston Middle School completed a short documentary video this spring for their community partner, the Franco-American Heritage Center at St. Mary’s.

The 12 students presented the video, “Bates Mill – Un Moulin a Lewiston,” to Lionel Guay, center board of directors chairman, at the school on June 11.

The video production was a service learning activity. Service learning projects are meant to serve a dual purpose. Academic learning in the classroom is tied with a meaningful service project for the community partner.

In this case the community partner, the Franco Heritage Center, benefits by having a video that depicts a brief history of the Bates Mill and the contributions of the thousands of French Canadian immigrants and later generations of French-speaking Americans who worked in the mills and made their lives in Lewiston-Auburn.

While studying the Franco-American history and culture of the community the students decided to produce a documentary about the mills and workers. Students researched mill life in Lewiston, then designed a story board for the video.

The school utilized digital recording equipment and I-Movie software to produce the video. Funds for the equipment were provided through an Aspiration grant provided by L.L. Bean.

Filming and editing assistance was provided by the school’s artist-in-residence, Huey, a Maine film maker. Students taped segments at the mill complex. They filmed former mill workers Armand Boucher and Antoinette Therrien and mill operator Fred Lebel. They also filmed Allan Turgeon, plant manager at the Bates Mill Enterprise Complex. Authentic music was provided by classmate Rebecca Grube, an accomplished violinist, along with her teacher, Greg Boardman.

The 10-minute documentary was produced by the students who took the roles of photographers, editors and sound persons. They also did voice-overs. Film footage of the mill complex was used as well as photos provided by Turgeon and by the Franco-American Reading Room of Lewiston-Auburn College.

The video was shown to the public at the Spring Middle School Film Festival. It was entered into competition at the 2003 Maine Student Film and Video Festival. A copy of the video is available at the Lewiston Public Library and at the Franco-American Reading Room.

The video and all footage was turned over to Guay and it will be archived for future study by visitors and students.

Courchesne’s classes also presented the center some 70 stories of community residents written by French students over the past school year. The oral histories will also be archived. Over the last five years eighth-grade French students have contributed nearly 400 stories of Franco, Irish and other ethnic residents of the community.