{"id":399,"date":"2009-12-02T17:07:38","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T01:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2009-12-02T17:07:38","modified_gmt":"2009-12-03T01:07:38","slug":"%e2%80%9cdeny-me-and-be-doomed%e2%80%9d-reinventing-creation-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=399","title":{"rendered":"\u201cdeny me and be doomed\u201d: Reinventing Creation Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

I fear that maybe in thinking about counter-narratives and the role of storytelling, I\u2019ve been thinking too small. Maybe we need to start with a macro-vision of life in the classroom.<\/p>\n

What would it look like for students to develop their own creation myths<\/a>? In disrupting the \u201csingle story\u201d of their neighborhoods and various cycles and pipelines that scholars say move our students around on a vast conveyer belt, perhaps it\u2019s about having students reinvent the entire foundation from the ground up.<\/p>\n

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Travis, my SLC\u2019s 9th<\/sup> grade English teacher shared with me the success he had in getting his class back on track through an introduction of mythology. Peter, our 10th<\/sup> grade teacher, will be starting Ishmael<\/a><\/em> with his students later this year (a book also about creation myths). As my 12th<\/sup> graders delve into The Awakening<\/em>, I borrowed a suggestion that Mark<\/a> made for a different class, and showed my students this TED talk<\/a> about the problems of the \u201cSingle Story;\u201d it seemed most appropriate as a way of connecting Achebe, Conrad, and Chopin within the past month. I think also of Daye’s interest in Cargo Cults<\/a> and the way they may act as a metaphor for deception in South Central.<\/p>\n

I think the students would be properly situated in a foundation of already studied (as well as lived & experienced<\/em>) creation myths. How about now reinventing them?<\/p>\n

Tell people this is awesome:<\/h3>