storytelling WORKSHOPS FOR STUDENTS
Since 2020, Living Hyphen has brought storytelling workshops to over a thousand students all across Canada at the elementary, high school, and post-secondary levels. We have delivered programming both virtually and in-person, and we work closely with educators to customize workshops that align with their learning goals and students’ interests.
At Living Hyphen, we believe that every student – and every person, really – has an important story to share and we strive to cultivate spaces of courageous and tender storytelling for all ages.
Scroll below for a sample of the kinds of workshops we’ve developed in partnership with educators.
ABOUT OUR FACILITATOR
Justine Abigail Yu is the founder of Living Hyphen. She is an award-winning workshop facilitator whose work with Living Hyphen has been featured on national and local media outlets including the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, Yahoo! News, CTV National News, and the CBC. She is also a freelance writer whose work has been featured in publications such as the Philippine Reporter, Intermission Magazine, Metro News Canada, and Makeshift Magazine.
She was also named a “Changemaker” by the Toronto Star in October 2021.
This 2-hour workshop is specifically designed for young students to explore what home means to them through different storytelling exercises including drawing, writing, and conversation. We take an expansive view on what it means to explore where we are “from” and encourage students to answer this question in whatever way feels right to them.
Together we create poetry and illustrations while reflecting on the people and places we call home. Students are encouraged to use their senses to tap into the feeling of home – wherever that might be.
““Justine was excellent, and I learned so much from her, especially about Indigenous lands, how to provide good feedback, and how much we can actually produce when challenged to write.
I learned a lot from my classmates, too—about the tightrope we walk between honoring our past and needing to critique it, about how living in a new land can be liberating, but how keeping connected to the past can strengthen our identities. It sure gave me a lot to think about, and I hope to take another class from Justine again someday.””
Identity, history, and home have layers; for many of us, they involve multiple geographies, two or more worlds. Over the course of this writing workshop, we’ll examine the complexities of our diasporic identities through writing prompts, storytelling exercises, and discussion. We’ve designed this workshop to be intimate and generative, with writing prompts that will spark your creativity and give you the time and space to share your story in a safe and positive environment. This workshop can be adapted to students of varying ages from elementary school to post-secondary.
“I wasn’t fully sure what to expect with the Living in Between Cultures Writing and Storytelling Workshop Series. I met with [Living Hyphen] virtually to discuss the program and share my vision and hopes for engaging in this type of program and now that the program is over, I have left feeling completely blown away by the magic that happened in [this] workshop space. Justine is an incredible facilitator – she has a knack for making her audience feel welcomed and like they belong. Justine had stressed multiple times that to participate in this program you do not need to be a professional storyteller or a writer, and I had my doubts. However, this couldn’t be more true. The prompts and guides...are simple yet brought out very deep and emotional conversations and stories from our university students. Everyone has a talent to write and share their stories and [Living Hyphen] makes this possible. ”
Over the last few years, our focus has been on creating equitable and inclusive spaces for newcomer and racialized students learning English while preserving and honouring their first – and sometimes second, third, or even fourth! – languages. This writing workshop encourages multilingual learners to share their stories in their mother tongue(s) as well as in English, finding a playful balance between all of the different parts of ourselves.
We have worked with ELL and MLL educators and welcome centres to develop programming that speaks to students in a way that encourages them to share their lived experiences and affirms their expertise in those experiences.
During this writing workshop, we’ll explore how we can honour our Filipino heritage while also living in between cultures, peoples, and places as part of a diaspora. What does it mean to be a hyphenated Canadian/American? To embody that hyphen in our own being? To act as a bridge between homeland and adopted country, between past and present, between our ancestors and descendants? What does it mean to do all that in the context of the tyranny that our homeland finds itself under today?
This 2-hour writing workshop is designed for Filipinx in the diaspora of all writing levels, but especially those who are amateur or emerging.
“As a Filipino-Canadian who would like to honour my heritage and family’s stories, and discover the art of writing, this Filipinx Feels workshop was the perfect opportunity to do. I appreciated how Justine facilitated a safe and positive space with thought-provoking writing prompts. It has motivated me more to get out of my comfort zone, reflect on my culture, and to continue to practice my writing.”
OUR PARTNERS
We’ve been very fortunate to work with school boards across Ontario and post-secondary institutions across the country.
