Supporting Creative Curriculum Development Through Flow Narratives
Presentation Type
Workshop
Location
Davis Hall 130
Start Date
10-4-2019 1:00 PM
End Date
10-4-2019 2:15 PM
Abstract
This interactive workshop will guide participants through a creative approach to core curriculum development that builds on people’s experiences of peak focus and energy.
Description
In 2015, Florida International University initiated a multi-year project to enhance student success in “high-impact courses,” meaning core courses that heavily influence student retention. Two of these courses, ENC 1101/1102, comprise the first-year writing sequence housed in the English Department’s Writing and Rhetoric Program. During Finals Week of Spring 2015, the presenters facilitated a two-day faculty workshop to begin redesigning the first-year writing curriculum. We wanted this workshop to model creative pedagogical practices that would inspire and energize faculty and, in turn, help them inspire and energize their students. Instead of problematizing in typically academic ways, we asked faculty to compose and share narratives about flow—i.e., peak experiences where one is so absorbed in an activity that one loses sense of time and space. In writing their own flow narratives—anything from pursuing a hobby to facilitating a great class discussion--participants began crafting new narratives about who they are as faculty and as members of the writing program, emphasizing what excites them, what keeps them at their most engaged. We then collectively brainstormed what a flow-driven curriculum would look like. This process set the tone for the redesign process as the first-year course sequence evolved from privileging traditional academic writing toward project-based assignments that cultivate student creativity through multimodal writing, community engagement, and public rhetoric. In this proposed workshop, facilitators will guide participants through a streamlined version of this process.
Supporting Creative Curriculum Development Through Flow Narratives
Davis Hall 130
This interactive workshop will guide participants through a creative approach to core curriculum development that builds on people’s experiences of peak focus and energy.
