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JMC:2425 (3 credits)
Iowa Stories & Lived Experiences (ISLE) is an intensive multimedia workshop offered in the summer that gives students real-world experience in collaborative journalism. The immersive format of the workshop allows students to focus their energy on one project while producing portfolio-quality work.
During the first half of the workshop, students are embedded in a select Iowa community to document its stories and explore its connection to a central theme. The second half of the workshop is spent in production and post-production as students edit, collect data and build upon their visual storytelling skills to create a multimedia project. The workshop incorporates photography, video, audio, emerging media, and data visualizations–culminating in a final screening of student work.
This course is offered during the summer session only.
What's it like?
Watch and listen to reflections from students who participated in the 2025 ISLE workshop that explored the cultural, economic, and political currents that shape the lives of African immigrants in eastern Iowa.
Student work
2025 Awards
- Hearst Journalism Awards: 2nd place in the Multimedia Team Enterprise Story Competition
- AEJMC Festival of Visual & Interactive Media: Bronze winner for student multimedia
- National Press Club: Honorable mention in the Pamela Tobey Award for Excellence in Visual Storytelling
- College Photographer of the Year: Award of Excellence in Multimedia: Online Storytelling
Creating ISLE 2026
Through a striking and evocative combination of multimedia, including writing, photography, and videography, the project brought forth compelling stories regarding how the past of Muscatine, Iowa, continues to influence its present.
The particular stories highlighted included a look at Muscatine’s history and impact as the Pearl Button Capital, its agricultural produce legacy, its cross-cultural connections with its sister state through the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the generational impact of boxing in the community.
Questions?