BALANCING ARTISTRY AND CRITICALITY

Developing a Research-Based Digital Storytelling Curriculum for Women in Eating Disorder Recovery

Why Curriculum?• Used to certain ways of seeing things

(literally) in dominant culture• Encouraging participants to draw on

alternative resources to tell their stories• Opening possibilities

Where Do I Begin?• Curriculum-building: an intimidating task?• Different needs for different:

• People• Purposes• Settings

Where Do I Begin?

Finding the issue you’d like to deconstruct using digital stories: dominant and subjugated knowledges

Where Do I Begin?• Who are you working with?• Where are you working with them?• How much time do you have?• What is your background knowledge of the

issue?• What is their background knowledge of the

issue?

Example: Building a Curriculum Around Eating Disorder Recovery

Sources of Information

• Research literature• Popular literature• Research (empirical- your own)• Activists & advocacy organizations

Pulling it Together• Key messages• Salient to

participants• More

questions than answers

Pulling it Together

• Reframing expertise

• Inviting participants’ meanings

Speaking Back: Representational Issues

Making RoomInstruction vs. Discussion

Making Room• Navigating lived experience in topic area

• Your own lived experience; varying levels of lived experiences

• Doing emotional work without counseling training

Making RoomAccessibility considerations: learning approaches

Influence on Stories• How do you know that you are not just

creating a new imperative for how to tell a story?

“Curriculum” by Another Name• Do you always need curricula?

Other Educational Uses

• Digital stories as reflexive practice• Digital stories as class assignments:

assigning vs. doing• A place for curriculum development?• Iterative story loops

alamarre@uoguelph.ca

Questions?