Exploring Indigenous Ways of Knowing to Inspire Elementary Writing In/From Forest School

This workshop will lead participants through an interactive exploration into how using Indigenous ways of knowing and learning techniques in place-based outdoor education can be a springboard for exploring and creating written texts. A recipient of a McDowell Foundation Educational Research Grant, this session presents hands-on, evidence-based practices for educators that are based on: (1) Brayboy and Castagno’s recommendation that the “oral traditions and storytelling central to many tribal communities can and should serve as foundations for the written and text-based literacies required by and developed within schools” (p. 43); and (2) the 8-Ways Indigenous Learning & Pedagogical Framework.