When: April 21-22, 2011
Where: Cambridge, MA
Institution: Harvard African Languages in the Disciplines: 2nd Annual Conference
Facilitator: Doris Sommer
Harvard African Languages in the Disciplines (ALD) aims to engage a diverse range of scholars and African heritage communities in serious discussion about the contributions of African languages to the disciplines.
Prof. Doris Sommer facilitated a Pre-Texts workshop at ALD’s 2nd annual conference. In the interactive program, teachers and students were exposed to fun and effective ways of teaching and relating to written texts, skills which are easily transferable to African language contexts. Literacy models based on this method of teaching and learning through the arts have been implemented in Uganda and Mexico, and were presented by Naseemah Mohamed, a Harvard College student who plans to apply them in an after-school program in Zimbabwe as part of her Social Engagement thesis project.