Tags: Muslim, Children’s stories, Kid’s stories, Islam, Ramadam

This episode is a compelling discussion with Dr. Elizabeth Santiago about why it's important for young people to own their narratives. Through the telling of her own story, Dr. Santiago helps us to understand why it can be harmful to tokenize young people, why students of color require support navigating higher education spaces, and how her own story influences her game-changing work at MENTOR. Click anywhere below to access the episode.

TUN Fellow Deshaun Rice used video to tell the story of his beloved Memphis, TN. Ode to My City by Deshaun Rice TUN Fellow Deshaun Rice used video to tell the story of his beloved Memphis, TN. As his final creative work for the TUN Fellowship, he offers this critical look at Memphis' education system and shares some of the historical context and current issues facing its residents. (c) Deshaun Rice 2023 for The Untold Narratives

Wael's Project “Working on this project has been a joy. From interviewing to finalizing the project it’s all been quite fun. The interview was really interesting as I learned so much from Ellie and truly thought her life was interesting and the way it’s meant to be lived. Transforming the interview was the hard part as I had to do something I’d realistically be capable of and something Ellie would like. I’ve settled on my format of a voice-over with pictures of flowers using Ellie’s real autobiography as a model. Much like the Autobiography, not only does my video talk about Ellie’s life it also uses flowers as Ellie believed that it would bring some happiness to such a story and I totally agreed. Moreover I wanted this video to feel personal and something truly highlighting Ellie so that was further reasoning to take motivation from the autobiography.” -Wael Go Back to Inspired By ... 2024 Project List

*Currently Available* Poetry Poetry is a type of writing that is hyper-focused on word choices and rhythm. In poetry, words are strung together to form sounds, images, and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly. In this section, you will find helpful ideas to get you started writing your own poems. Memoir A memoir tells the story of a personal life experience that helped you grow or change. We all have experiences that have shaped us whether negative or positive into the person we are today. Writing a memoir gives others a chance to learn from us. In this section, you will find helpful ideas to get you started writing your own memoir. Non-fiction Non-fiction is any document or content that purports in good faith to represent truth and accuracy regarding information, events, or people. Nonfiction Content may be presented either objectively or subjectively, and may sometimes take the form of a story. *In Development* The Craft of Writing To write, all you need are ideas and a way to get your ideas down. Once you have ideas and have written them down, then what do you do? The C raft of Writing section will help you organize your ideas and take your writing to the next level. Long and short fiction Fiction is storytelling that comes from your imagination. It’s a chance for you to entertain, inspire, inform, or persuade using your own creativity. Some general types of fiction incl u de the novel, short story, poetry, scripts (for TV and Movies), stage plays, song lyrics, folktales, myths and legends. For this section, we are going to only focus on novels and short stories. Podcasts Are you interested in telling your story through a Podcast? A podcast is a series of spoken word, audio episodes that people can download and listen to at thei r convenience. In this section, we give you ideas for using a podcast format to tell your story. YouTube Series YouTube is an amazing format for telling a story or sharing knowledge with the world. If you'd like to create a YouTube video or series to tell your story, this section will help you get started. Editing and Revision So you have been writing and you are ready to review your writing to make sure it makes sense to you and your readers, this section on editing and revising your work will help you!

Read Kameryn Thigpen 's essays in the following order: The Antithesis of America A Symphonic Affirmation Are You Mad At Us? I have dreams

Lana's Project Go Back to Inspired By ... 2024 Project List

The Moonlit Vine by Elizabeth Santiago Fourteen-year-old Taína just learned that she is a descendant of a long line of strong Taíno women, but will knowing this help her bring peace and justice to her family and community? Despite her name, Taína Perez doesn't know anything about her Taíno heritage, nor has she ever tried to learn. After all, how would ancient Puerto Rican history help with everything going on? There's constant trouble at school and in her neighborhood, her older brother was kicked out of the house, and with her mom at work, she's left alone to care for her little brother and aging grandmother. It's a lot for a 14-year-old to manage. But life takes a wild turn when her abuela tells her she is a direct descendant of Anacaona, the beloved Taíno leader, warrior, and poet, who was murdered by the Spanish in 1503. Abuela also gives her an amulet and a zemi and says that it's time for her to step into her power like the women who came before her. But is that even possible? People like her hardly make it out of their circumstances, and the problems in her home and community are way bigger than Taína can manage. Or are they? A modern tale with interstitial historical chapters, The Moonlit Vine brings readers a powerful story of the collective struggle, hope, and liberation of Puerto Rican and Taíno peoples. Published by Lee and Low . Also available in Spanish, Claro de luna Reviews * "A beautiful ode to Puerto Rican history...Santiago's writing sparkles, even as it draws upon hard realities that Puerto Ricans can face in their everyday lives and sense of cultural identity. Filled with arresting prose and historical stories, this novel brings Puerto Rican history into the present, mixing in realistic themes to which most readers will relate." -- Booklist, starred review * "Readers will cheer for the bold, resourceful protagonist as she uses her newfound power to bring everyone she cares about together ... Mayle's evocative black-and-white art and interstitial chapters centering Ty's ancestors through the centuries round out the contemporary storyline ... Deeply moving, beautifully written, and inspiring." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Mayle's elegant b&w art appears throughout and historical interstitials center Ty's forebears as they endured harrowing events such as genocide and colonization. Via evocative third-person prose, Santiago proudly showcases Taíno culture in this empowering debut that is at once educational, realistic, and speculative." -- Publishers Weekly Kirkus Reviews named The Moonlit Vine one of their Best Teen & YA Novels of 2023 About Social Issues Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18 selected The Moonlit Vine as one of the titles to be honored on the Rise 2024 Booklist. This book was a "Top Ten" Title, meaning that it was a unanimous YES for all committee members! Read more about this honor here: https://www.ala.org/rt/2024-rise-feminist-book-project-list Honors and Awards Read Articles about The Moonlit Vine Listen to a Podcast Watch the Book Trailer!

We believe everyone has stories to tell, yet not all stories are told. This is not because of talent or desire, but because of access and opportunity. The goal of theuntoldnarratives.com is to provide a space for storytelling, for writers to learn the art and craft of writing at their own pace. Everyone has a story to tell, yet not all stories are told. Creating more narratives that represent the multiple identities and realities in the world starts with you. The Untold Narratives provides services and supports to help you or people close to you tell their stories and share them with the public. It doesn't matter whether you think you are a good writer or storyteller. We believe in you, so come learn and share with us! The Untold Narratives provides services and supports to help you release the stories within and share them with others. For her fellowship project, Jordan delved into deep, abstract topics like double consciousness and inconsistent realities by placing characters in a dark, atmospheric environment to highlight these concepts. The result is a fantastic blend of character , theme and vibe that will keep you riveted. -Liz Santiago, Founder of The Untold Narratives TUN Storytelling Fellow: Jordan Richo The title "The Strange Lamp” is in reference to the phenomenon in which people are snapped out of their perceptions of reality by a single, out of place object, thus revealing the horrific dreamlike state they had previously been living happily within. To exist in this world as a person of color is to be both subconsciously aware and willfully unaware of both a real and imagined identity. The black body has often been a stand-in for inherent monstrosity. And when you are contending with a violent history, while consuming media and language that seeks to dehumanize you until you believe that your own nature is comparatively disturbed, there is a third point of view that manifests as dreams or fantasy. The out of body experience that Dubois coined as "double consciousness." I wanted to explore these out of body experiences with identity. I wanted to explore how fear and violence manifest in third spaces of reality. How histories of violence and hatred can burrow deep into even our most comfortable spaces and in turn infect our perceptions of our relationships and ourselves. Read her co mplete work here: Jordan Richo An Excerpt from TUN Fellow Jordan Richo's Work Join our Mailing List! Info@theuntoldnarratives.com

Meet Nabila Anandira Nabila has found a community that inspires her in Somerville, Massachusetts where she was raised and where continuing to learn. Currently she is a junior at Tufts University, Nabila is curious about how art can be used as a powerful tool in supporting the collective healing and wellbeing of a community. She is creating her own major that combine Community Health, Studio Art, and Civic Studios. Informally, she is known as the loving Godmother to Pomeranian-Poodle Tully and Shitzu-Yorkie Thor! Experience Nabila Anandira's work Click Me

Meet Hannah Richo Hannah Richo is a recent graduate of the studio for Interrelated Media program at the Massachusetts College Of Art. Her practice focuses on ideas of home and family, exploring how the spaces we inhabit interact with and are affected by our cultural backgrounds. She values community building through the art of storytelling and uplifting marginalized voices. Hannah has a love for the horror genre and her literary inspirations are Toni Morrison, Quan Berry and Carmen Maria Machado. Experience Hannah Richo's work I’ve always been interested in the concept of a home. It is, to me, a space that is very alive, filled with our own personal rituals. I wanted to stretch the meanings of home and family, utilizing stereotypes from family sitcoms and tropes from the horror genre. To me, this project is an exploration of genre, I love blending nostalgia with darker concepts, and delving into the topic of girlhood and all of its contradictions. I was stuck, for a while, in the process of conceptualizing, and trying to make sense of my ideas. One thing that always hinders my creative process is the idea of format and structure, I was very stuck on a particular structure and fitting my writing in a box. Worried it would be difficult to understand otherwise. This led to quite a bit of scrapping and starting over, and being over critical. Getting rid of structure and format altogether was what helped to start loosening the tension I had surrounding this piece. Letting the words and language determine their own structure. Basically taking a hammer to the entire piece and moving around all of the broken fragments. I think really playing with the idea of what it means for a space to be haunted, what is a haunting, how does it manifest, pushed me forward in conceptualizing my project. What really inspired this particular piece was the idea that we, in our day to day lives, haunt every space we inhabit. We leave marks everywhere we go, changing, mutating every room we enter. Hauntings, in horror movies and books, are extremes. I thought, in passing, as a teenage girl, you exist to haunt your father’s home. A haunting is a persistent disturbance, and a teenage girl, constantly changing, is persistently disturbing, whether it be physically or atmospherically, her father’s home. Actively contesting and contradicting it. From there I was able to really piece things together. This as well as, beginning to describe this writing to myself as body horror, where the body in question is the home. I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to write without a set format or style in mind, I liked being able to delve really deeply into a subject matter, creating a strange amalgamation of poetry and short story writing and having the comfort of being able to share it in a non-judgmental space. Click Me

For Teachers Supporting Choice Reading for Students in Distance Learning https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-choice-reading-students-distance-learning Tags : Choice Reading, Literacy, Distance Learning, Student-Centered Learning, Covid-19 How to improve schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to students https://hechingerreport.org/how-to-improve-schooling-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-according-to-students/ Tags : Student voice, Covid-19, school improvement American Indians / Indigenous Peoples / Native Nations https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/american-indians/ Tags: Social justice books, Children’s stories, Kid’s stories, Native Americans, Indigenous A Guide to Teaching Writing With Minecraft https://www.edutopia.org/article/guide-teaching-writing-minecraft Tags : writing, writing instruction, Minecraft, creative ideas The Weaponization of Whiteness in Schools https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2020/the-weaponization-of-whiteness-in-schools Tags : Whiteness, Schools, School improvement, weaponization The Forgotton Slavery of Our Ancestors https://www.tolerance.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/the-forgotten-slavery-of-our-ancestors Tags : Native Americans, slavery, history, Indigenous