Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to the Pre-Texts method for integrating civics, innovation, and literacy. It draws on the experience of Lindsay Bobyak and Sophie Brown in using Pre-Texts with elementary students as part of Creative Roots Collective, which provides educational opportunities in rural Colorado. This chapter provides tangible strategies for elementary teachers and educators which can improve literacy and oracy outcomes for students and bridge the gap between the idealism and practicality of a creative, collaborative, and co-owned classroom experience. The chapter provides vignettes of the arts-based protocol in action and breaks down the component Pre-Texts activities. Finally, the authors look at positive changes in student behavior and provide guidance for integrating Pre-Texts into the classroom.
TopExposition
It’s Friday morning at the usual time. The violins have been put away after a morning of group and individual lessons. The corridors are quieter than on normal days – school isn’t in session at Cactus Valley Elementary, yet the library is abuzz with quiet concentration. The Creative Roots Students are working with Ray Bradbury's “All Summer in a Day.” We are led into a discussion of bullying. How does it make the students feel reading the story aloud versus in their head? What stories of bullying do they have in their own lives?
The smallest fourth grader pipes up: “We should just rewrite the story, with a new character that stands up for Margot!”
Key Terms in this Chapter
Doodling: drawing while engaged in another task. Sunni Brown discusses issues with the etymology of the term and provides the revised definition that doodling is “making spontaneous marks (with your mind and body) to help yourself think” ( Brown, 2020 , p. 11).
Literacy: a multi-modal set of competencies and social practices by which we make sense of the world, including but not limited to written texts.
The Clothesline: a literal clothesline or piece of string suspended in the classroom or gathering space on which participants in the Pre-Texts protocol can “publish” their work. The practice derives from the practice of literatura de cordel in South America.
Tangents: Pieces of texts which participants find independently and connect to the central text.
Pre-Texts: a curation of practices which provide a framework for integrating reading, creativity and civics through arts-based activities.
Cultural Agents: an initiative at Harvard University and a not-for-profit organization which facilitates Pre-Texts training worldwide.