Storying the Self: (Re)Claiming our Voices

Wishlist Share
Share Course
Page Link
Share On Social Media

About Course

Engage with lived experiences and identities that have often been denied a public voice. Consider the nuanced contexts of race, gender, class, language, ability, and how these impact your position as a leader and creator. You’ll question what it means to reclaim your narrative of yourself and to engage with the strength of vulnerability as a leader and creator. In a creative exercise, you’ll engage with multiple perspectives on a past conflict and use this reflection to practice perspective-taking and listening that can generate creative work and deepen leadership skills for empathy, listening and engaging in multicultural workplaces.

Show More

What Will You Learn?

  • Engage active listening towards others’ life stories with empathy and curiosity.
  • Identify the interaction between sociocultural and interpersonal dynamics in life stories.
  • Value our own life experiences and identities as leaders and creators.

Course Content

Week 1: Welcome to the Course!
This week we'll dive more deeply into aspects of our social identities, how they relate to our access to resources, voice, and choice, and how they shape our stories of ourselves. We'll also take a look at the four types of stories: stock stories, concealed stories, resistance stories, and transformative stories to better understand how stories are used within our cultural contexts. Learning Objectives Reflect on the stories society has shaped about your life or identities. Explore types of stories through the Storytelling Project Model. Identify the interaction between sociocultural and interpersonal dynamics in life stories.

  • 1.1 Welcome to Storying the Self!(video)
    02:21
  • 1.2 Course Assessment
  • 1.3 How Stories Function in Society(video)
    03:44
  • 1.4 Glossary of Identity Terms
  • 1.5 Social Justice Self-Reflection — The Power Flower
  • 1.6 Smelling the Power Flower(video)
    02:36
  • 1.7 Power Flower or Identity Headlines
  • 1.8 Storytelling for Social Justice
  • 1.9 “The Cycle of Socialization”
  • 1.10 Reginald Dwayne Betts Podcast
  • 1.11 Stories Society Tells About You

Week 2: Critical Witnessing, Vulnerability and Stories
This week we reflect on what it means to receive the stories others share. We'll also practice deep listening and noticing. Learning Objectives Consider the ways that our identities and social positions impact how we receive others' stories. Engage active listening towards others’ life stories with empathy and curiosity.

Week 3: Stories Hidden within Systems and Structures
This week we consider stories of individual experiences within structures and systems that add greater nuance to the stock or dominant narratives we hear. We will consider what is possible when we complicate common stereotypes and consider the ways that power interacts with these stories. Learning Objectives Critically analyze stories using the Storytelling Project Model story types. Identify the interaction between sociocultural and interpersonal dynamics in life stories.

Week 4: Stories that Move Us into Questioning, into Action
This week we consider how honoring the stories in our bodies and the empathy that arises when we deeply hear others' stories and perspectives can move us into action. Learning Objectives Integrate reflection, creation, and revision of your creative work into a final class project. Practice providing feedback to the work of peers. Identify strategies that are helpful for your learning as a creator and leader. Reflect on the ways your identities shape how you tell a story. Explore multiple truths through taking more than one perspective on a memory. Reflect on truth and believability in your own life experiences. Consider the structural and systemic factors that influence how stories are 'heard' and believed. Value our own and others' life experiences and identities as leaders and creators.

Earn a Certificate

Add this certificate to your resume to demonstrate your skills & increase your chances of getting noticed.

selected template

Student Ratings & Reviews

No Review Yet
No Review Yet

Want to receive push notifications for all major on-site activities?