Reading Our World: Story Building

It’s the most wonderful time of the semester again… Registration! If you are an English Education major or a student looking for a class to improve your storytelling skills, look no further than ENGL 242 Reading Our World: Storybuilding.

This course teaches you how to use storytelling, drama, writing projects, and word games to build critical literacy skills. Storybuilding engages students physically in their learning, shifting classroom paradigms:

  • Traditional memorization is replaced with strategies for conflict resolution.
  • Passive in-class listening is replaced with innovations in community building.
  • Independent research is replaced with multi-cultural identity exploration.

This class is taught by a theatre professional trained in the established pedagogy. Neighborhood Bridges is a curriculum-based literacy and creative drama  program developed by the Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis. The program is nationally recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a model for arts education, and has received Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) grants.

More than 94% of classroom teachers who participated in Bridges in 2007-2008 indicated that students’ acting, storytelling, oral communication skills, attitude towards writing, and use of imagination and descriptive details in writing improved during the course of the program.

Millersville students who have taken this class in the past rave about it! Many claim it was one of their favorite classes offered at Millersville.

Details:

  • Meets Mondays from 6-9pm
  • Counts for a G1 and W
  • If you have already taken ENGL 242, you can take it again for elective credit
  • Includes a local  school placement during the second half of the semester, practicing skills with a partner from the class
  • Requires a weekend workshop training in January
  • Requires clearances for the school placement

Contact Caleb Corkery for more information.