What Can Stories Teach Us?
What warnings have you learned from stories? What have stories helped you celebrate? How do stories speak for you?
This week my first year writing students and the Just Write Virtual Writing Group dug deeper into the stories that shape our identity and help form our personal values. This work continues our “What If” exploration of our personal values as part of the Morehead Writing Project‘s Building A More Perfect Union grant, Root Deep, Grow Tall and builds on our This I Believe American Creed work. This writing is part of the foundation for our rhetorical analysis work, but also provided inspiration to both groups of writers.
We first considered the warnings and celebrations offered by our most beloved stories while drawing inspiration from won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton. Then used Still I Rise by Maya Angelou to frame our response to those who question or even hate our favorite stories.
We then considered these questions:
- How does the story you picked speak for you?
- How does the story you picked resonate or connect with your identity, your values, your story?
- How does this story help or hinder our pursuit of a more perfect union?
Humans love stories and we love to share our stories. May you find inspiration in the stories that are meaningful to your life.
Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay
