We invite you to introduce yourself, to share something that offers some insight into who you are.  

We are often asked to tell our stories according to someone else’s standards of what counts, but we are not necessarily asked about what matters to us, what we value, even if it can’t be measured. We are often asked to express ourselves in a standardized format, like a Curriculum Vitae (CV) or résumé. But what if we could write a CV that was based not on degrees and positions or peer-reviewed publications, but on what we think is most important about who we are and what we are genuinely most proud to have accomplished?  

Think of this as a warm invitation to share an “unintroduction” with full creative license. We know it’s not the first time some of you have done an activity of introducing yourself differently, so this might be easier for some than others, but we hope all of you will enjoy doing this. Here is an activity Maha found, designed by @cogdog that inspired other educators to use as icebreakers: “Ingredients of Me“. This is just one example, but there are endless ways one might go about this…

Create your own “alternative” CV and share it here  — in whatever media and style you like. Share it using the tags #altcv and #MyFest23Introductions. If you have a blog, you can create it there, then post a link here or on Slack. Remember to write alternative text for images to ensure accessibility. 

(This idea was originally published on Digital Writing Month, co-authors Maha Bali, Sarah Honeychurch and Kevin Hodgson. This version is adapted from there.)