Teaching with Bright Futures through EMU

During the last four months, I have had the pleasure of teaching with Eastern Michigan University Bright Futures 21st Century Community Learning Centers. 

I have been teaching puppetry classes at a handful of the program's sites, ranging from 2nd grade to 8th grade students.

My class was titled "Puppetry 101." 

The class was essentially a survey of many different puppetry styles, learning about and designing/performing a new technique every-other week. While we created many, many puppets throughout the four months and were very creative - we focused mainly on developing teamwork and collaborating together in order to bring a puppet character to life and develop performances.    


The Puppetry techniques we covered were;
• Table-Top/Bunraku
• Paper Bag Puppets
• Hand Puppets
• Rod Puppets
• Marionettes

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From the Bright Futures Website;

"EMU’s 21CCLC Bright Futures are high quality after school programs.

The focus of Bright Futures is to improve academic achievement, develop self-efficacy, and prepare elementary, middle, and high school students to transition to the next level of schooling.

The main goals of the Program are:
• Increase academic achievement
• Increase student academic learning
• Increase student learning in non-academic areas
• Increase student knowledge of career options and how to achieve them
• Increase the experience of students transitioning to the next level (elementary to middle, middle to high school, high school to post-secondary)
• Increase the literacy of parents in the skills that will help their children in English, Language Arts, and Math.
• Increase student self-efficacy through leadership experiences and service-learning"