There have been so many amazing things I’ve learned and participated in during MYFest it’s hard to pull together all the ripples that are likely. One that is standing out to me at the moment is that there have been several sessions in which stories and storytelling play an important part. I’m thinking of, for example, Dark Matter y La Facultdad sessions, Microfiction workshops, and Readers’ Theatre. I’m sure there are others!
For me, the sessions I participated in (and some I missed but will be reviewing resources from later) really rekindled a love of stories and the deep value they have for our lives in many ways, including education. One thing that really surprised me was the amount of meaning and feeling that can come from incredibly short stories, such as 6, 10, or 25 word stories. I had fun writing a number of these even after the microfiction workshops were complete, and I plan to continue to do so. I am finding them challenging but really interesting to write!
I am also thinking about how to include more stories in my philosophy classes. How, for example, might asking students to write a very short story be a way for them to express what they are getting out of a philosophical text in terms of its meaning to them? Could you summarize one of Plato’s dialogues, for example, in a 6-word story? I’m not sure, but I think it would be fun to try!
I also really enjoyed reading folk tales out loud with others during Readers’ Theatre, especially with kids. It brought the stories alive much more than reading them silently in my head, with my eyes. The voices make such a big difference. Which of course I knew having read many stories to my son when he was young, and listening to many audiobooks now, but it was wonderful being able to join in with a group of people and share our voices together!
Header image: doodle art by my son, 7 years old at the time, for a DS106 daily create activity–he created a monster emerging from a book cave! See more information for this image on Flickr.
Oh my gosh, this post made my day, Christina! Now I am going to be on the lookout for goblins emerging from the accidental book caves I create on my bookshelves when I pull out a book and leave a gap. I never thought about danger lurking there like that, ha ha.
And about students and stories: just based on my experience, I am guessing you will be amazed at what they come up with. Especially with the microfiction, every student felt empowered by the format, and they also learned so much from being able to see each other’s stories (and there is time to really explore other people’s stories when they are super-short, like when we did those 6-word stories together at the Padlet in the first workshop). I just wish Plato were around to enjoy it too, ha ha. But because he took the time to tell us The Cave (along with some other stories; the word “myth” in Greek just means story), you know he was aware of the power of STORY.
I’m so glad we are connected at Twitter so I can follow along and see how your semester goes! 🙂