The University of Maryland English Department and Northwestern High School hosted their “Telling True Stories” showcase May 1, a joint collaboration highlighting the lived experiences of Hyattsville residents.

The partnership launched in 2013 as ENGL292: Writing for Change, a UMD course in which enrolled students work virtually alongside Northwestern freshmen throughout the semester, exploring how literary work can drive social change. 

Past themes include “Imagining New Futures” in 2025, “The Future We Want… And What It’s Going to Take” in 2024, “Pandemic Perspectives” in 2020. 

This year’s showcase features five video submissions, amplifying youth voices on issues ranging from immigration and education to mental health and online harassment.

Families live in fear near Hyattsville ICE office

“ICE: Communities Frozen in Fear” examines the impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on local immigrant communities, with a focus on ICE offices in Hyattsville. An internal survey by high school participants found that minority populations that live in the areas surronding the facility feel uncertain and afraid.

“People start avoiding the outdoors, missing work, and living with the constant weight of separation from people they love,” the narrator of the student documentary states.

Technology alone does not improve teaching

“Water Your Flowers: A Student Perspective on the PG County Education System” takes a satirical, skit-based approach to issues facing the Northwestern community, including strained student-teacher relationships, truancy and insufficient technology training for teachers.

In the video, one participant claims that 65.2% of students in PG County reported that educators were not employing productive teaching methods. Using the fictional character of ‘Mr. B’, they emphasize how teachers that are too passive or aggressive only ostracize their students, discouraging any actual learning.

In another skit, a student complains that his chromebook computer is not working efficiently, while another uses his technology for entertainment rather than education. They point out that despite the county investing more in school technologies, more traditional methods of learning are actually preferred by the student body.

One teacher interviewed in the skit said that county funds should be allocated for training staff and faculty on how to use and implement technology into the classroom, not just providing the technology in isolation. 

“I feel like people have to know how to use the technology so that we aren’t wasting it, or we aren’t allowing it to overcome what we need to do in terms of interacting with our students,” he said. 

“We have all been through this [PG County Schools] system, through some high highs, and some rather low lows,” says one student in the film. 

The group concludes with a call for educators, administrators, parents and community members to attend PTA meetings, collaborate on projects to build better classroom environments, or submit their own ideas for how to improve the PG County School System.

“Any idea that you could share, or any insight you could offer, could help change the course of our education, but most importantly, our very own lives,” says one student. 

Animated against social media

“www.digitalfix.you” uses animated storytelling to examine the dangers of social media dependence. Through mock social media posts, the piece connects heavy platform use to declining mental health and urges viewers to reconsider their online habits. The animation closes on an optimistic note, with its protagonist setting down their phone and stepping outside.

“I knew social media had an effect on social skills, but it’s gotten so much worse than I thought,” the film’s narrator says. “I feel like we’ve lost the ability to communicate with each other in a mature way.”

Students seeking work experience bias

“Breaking the Barrier: How Discrimination Affects Employment Opportunities for Minorities” opens with a clip from the 2024 presidential debate in which Donald Trump referenced “Black” and “Hispanic” jobs, using it as a catalyst to examine race and employment inequality. The project draws on campaign videos, news clips and interviews to illustrate how bias shapes hiring practices and prompt audiences to reflect on their own prejudices.

How deep is it?

The final submission, “It’s Not That Deep,” features students performing slam poetry in a lecture hall. Rotating between the perspectives of a cyberbullying victim, perpetrator and bystander, the piece connects online harassment to depression, anxiety and suicide.

The bully’s perspective brushes off any wrongdoing, insisting the group never physically touched their target and that people are simply too sensitive. The victim sees it differently.

“They said, ‘it’s not that deep,'” one student performs. “But deep is laying awake at 3 a.m. wondering why strangers hate you.”

At its core, the poem delivers a unified message: “Maybe the most dangerous sentence in the world is, ‘it’s not that deep.'”