How storytelling helps us make sense of the world

In this video, Dr Gameli Tordzro explains how stories can be a powerful tool to illuminate individual lives and experiences of migration.

We promote the use of storytelling in two different ways in this course. Firstly, by sharing stories of migration with the students, and secondly by supporting students to create their own narratives around migration informed by stories and data.

In the next steps in this activity, we will share resources that you can use in the classroom so that students can learn about individual stories of migration. This includes reading six individuals’ stories whose data is in the large data set that we are working with, and an animation called Life on the Move. We have found that sharing these stories with students is a highly engaging activity and also helps them to develop empathy and understanding for people who migrate.

As we begin to explore how we can use a large data set in the classroom, we suggest that students are supported to create a tangible output to their work by creating a poster. Through creating this poster, students will create their own narrative around migration that is informed by the data.

In week 3, we will also touch on how other subjects can be brought into this project so that it becomes cross-curricular. We will discuss how students can use dance, drama, art and ICT to further develop their own data-informed stories on migration.