A dog named Doge takes a rocket ship to Mars to retrieve the family members of his alien owner, Mr. Nonchalant. That\u2019s the plotline two Bethlehem third graders pitched to their Moravian University mentor during a recent storytelling workshop at William Penn Elementary.<\/p>\n
Other student stories featured more grounded plots, such as a tale in which Oscar the Grouch and Elmo solve a conflict over a stolen cookie.<\/p>\n
The plot development lesson Monday marked the midpoint of a collaboration in which Moravian students bring the third graders\u2019 characters to life using puppets that will eventually star in original children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n
The William Penn students are the creative engines of the partnerships. To start, the third graders completed a brainstorming packet with character details. The Moravian students made felt puppets to those specifications and then brought the puppets in to inspire the plot-building workshop.<\/p>\n
Now that both the puppets and the plots are in place, the Moravian students will write and illustrate children\u2019s books that they will later share with their third grade partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just see all the smiles,\u201d William Penn Principal Nancy Zoudeh said, calling the workshop series a \u201cfun, creative\u201d way to work outside the traditional curriculum while building writing skills.<\/p>\n
The Moravian students are \u201cbasically celebrities in our kids\u2019 eyes,\u201d Zoudeh said, adding that the creative writing partnership is one way her community school is strengthening its partnership with the university in its backyard.<\/p>\n
The 24 university mentors come from Moravian\u2019s art and child development course. The class is required for art education students, but enrollees come from a wide variety of majors, with many preparing for careers in fields like pediatrics or speech pathology.<\/p>\n
Art is a form of expression that allows students to communicate feelings even when they don\u2019t have the words, said Moravian freshman Siria Moretti, who is studying neuroscience and would like to pursue a career in ophthalmology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that they can all connect with,\u201d Moretti said.<\/p>\n
Moretti\u2019s 8-year-old partners, Yamoussa Traore and Julian Jones, choose the name \u201cMr. Nonchalant\u201d from a list of personality words on their brainstorming packet.\n<\/p>\n
Yamoussa said being nonchalant means being someone who is \u201creally chill\u201d and \u201cdoesn\u2019t bother being annoyed.\u201d He said the dog\u2019s name, Doge, came from internet memes featuring a dog playing piano.<\/p>\n
Nine-year-old Jason Breidinger and 8-year-old Adriana Ortiz drew their characters from \u201cSesame Street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adriana said she likes how the characters on \u201cSesame Street\u201d learn, saying she\u2019s learned \u201cthat you can try new things\u201d from watching the show.<\/p>\n
Jason and Adriana worked with Moravian freshman Lilian Driscoll, who is considering a career in speech-language pathology or pediatrics.<\/p>\n
Art provides a dopamine boost that helps students enjoy their schoolwork, Driscoll said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really good way for kids to express themselves and work through the emotions that they feel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Having enough university mentors to provide one-on-one support helped the third graders unlock their individual creativity, third grade teacher Eric Smith said.<\/p>\n
The workshops provided a chance to \u201cbranch outside a bit\u201d beyond the district\u2019s focus on math and literacy, Smith said, adding that he considers himself \u201cone of the least artistic elementary school teachers you\u2019ll find\u201d and he appreciates having creative partners.<\/p>\n
Intergenerational mentorship fuels creativity, Moravian assistant professor MaryJo Rosania Harvie said. The storytelling workshops are the product of one such partnership, Harvie said, explaining that she first met William Penn third grade teacher Lindsey Dalla Piazza when Dalla Piazza taught Harvie\u2019s son. The two educators are now several years into their creative writing collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that\u2019s just so different,\u201d Dalla Piazza said, calling the workshops a break from the traditional school day that \u201cbrings creativity out through a different lens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using puppets is an intentional, research-based strategy that has proven successful not just in education but also in fields like speech pathology and pediatrics, Harvie said.<\/p>\n
Harvie draws inspiration from the Educators\u2019 Neighborhood learning community at the Fred Rogers Institute, which is based out of St. Vincent College, the home of the famous puppeteer\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n
Puppets support social and emotional skills such as trust building, Harvie said.<\/p>\n
A $600 National Art Education Association grant helped Harvie buy additional puppet-building supplies and put on after-school workshops, including a talk with author and illustrator Michael Reggiani.<\/p>\n
The feedback she\u2019s received from Moravian students shows the relationship-building part of the storytelling collaboration is working, Harvie said.<\/p>\n
Moravian students report that third graders are unafraid to share ideas, which makes the college students less anxious to express their own thoughts, Harvie said, adding that Moravian students say they\u2019re teaching the younger students patience and planning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat age gap actually adds a lot to the creative elements of the project,\u201d Harvie said.<\/p>\n
For Jason and Adriana, that means reminding Driscoll to come back with googly eyes for all the \u201cSesame Street\u201d characters. For Yamousse and Julian, it means ensuring Moretti can get them all the way to Mars \u2014 and back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dog named Doge takes a rocket ship to Mars to retrieve the family members of his alien…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,227,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":["post-130298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-education","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}