Through art-making workshops, our approach trains teachers and artists as facilitators for creative explorations of challenging texts. Using texts as prompts for making art develops:

1. Reading and interpretive skills,
2. Confidence in speaking and thinking in a target language,
3. Motivation to read and write,
4. Critical thinking skills,
5. Creativity,
6. Admiration for fellow artists

The Pre-Texts approach allows students to own the learning process by turning texts into material for telling their own versions and connecting literature with the world around them.

Pre-Texts Workshops

The approach of Pre-Texts is quite simple but has profound results: It turns the conventional order of learning upside-down. Instead of beginning with vocabulary and grammar, which can bore students and risk their dropping out, we begin with a creative challenge: Transform this text into your own work of art (painting, choreography, photo shoot, play, music, etc.) Students stay engaged and master the elements of reading in order to produce an original interpretation, which requires higher order thinking. Read more

Pre-Texts Goals

1. To promote student’s ownership of literary texts
2. To experience creative thinking as critical thinking.
3. To recognize that interpretation involves/validates one’s own experience.
4. To show that texts need creative intervention in order to make sense.
5. To illustrate that language is an art that can trigger other artistic processes.
6. To foster admiration among participants, the foundation of civic culture

Pre-Texts Learning Objectives

1. To Develop Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is appreciable in the children’s ability to imagine new relationships and outcomes by altering pre-existing literary texts.
2. To Increase Reading Enjoyment: Pleasure and play are central determinants in children’s desire to read and/or continue reading in the future. Reading enjoyment leads to continued reading and improvement in literacy levels over time.
3. To Develop Artistic/literacy Skills: Artistic engagement with literature develops literacy and creative faculties jointly.

Pre-Texts Target Outcomes

1. Short-term Outcomes
2. Intermediate-term Outcomes
3. Long-term Outcomes