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Upper School English Students Understand the Power of Story

9/13/2017

John Dau, Collegiate School’s Global Scholar-in-Residence, engaged juniors and seniors on how storytelling can bring cultures into being during their class, The Short Story in Modern World Literature.

The presentation of South Sudanese Dinka folktales, the stories of Mr. Dau’s childhood, intrigued students, as did the story-based system of education that shaped his early life, says Upper School English teacher Will Dunlap.

“Students saw real value in this ‘informal’ philosophical and ethical training, which inspired great discussions about the power of story in general, and alternatives to the traditional American educational system,” he said.

By reading a few of Dinka tales with Mr. Dau’s guidance, Mr. Dunlap’s class laid the groundwork to continue their investigation into the increasingly complex landscape of modern African writing, from Birago Diop's literary translations of Wolof animal tales to Bessie Head's powerful stories in protest of apartheid.

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