What does Critical Literacy look like in the context of creativity and collaboration? How can it be used as a tool to disrupt the status quo? In this session, we’ll explore how to interrogate biases and assumptions in texts (written/oral language, images, bodies, spaces, etc) through the lenses of multiple perspectives, and use theatre-based strategies to identify, question, & upset social injustices.

Neighborhood Bridges is a critical literacy program that uses storytelling, theatre arts and creative writing to empower students to become the animators of their own lives. The program flexes students’ abilities to identify the roots of social issues and systems of power in story and offer transformations in a group setting.  Students bend and re-imagine tales through scenes and improvisation while highlighting characters whose voices are misrepresented or eliminated from the original tale.  In this session, oral storytelling will serve as the springboard to engage in the reimagining of narratives. Attendees will participate in an interactive session we will ask  questions such as, “Who has power in this story? What kinds of power? Whose voice is missing? Who benefits from this version?” We’ll then use these interrogations as a springboard to create our own versions of the tale!