EDWARDSVILLE - This fall, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is participating in the Great Stories Club, a program run by the American Library Association (ALA) and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). SIUE will partner with St. Vincent Home for Children in the program.
Shadrack Msengi, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in SIUE’s School of Education, Health and Human Behavior, is serving as the project director. “The Great Stories Club provides opportunities for children to read books, with related themes, based on their real life situations,” he said. “Through literature-based library outreach initiatives, this program specifically engages youth who are facing difficult challenges.”
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Msengi strongly believes that challenged students are not deficient, but different. “They deserve a culture of literacy wherever they are, whether in their homes, communities, schools or detention centers,” he said. “The program’s themes align with solutions to complex student issues such as academic probation, detention, incarceration, violence and poverty. These themes will allow children to apply the knowledge gained from text reading as a springboard for sharing a variety of issues raised during discussion and other literacy activities.”
Msengi partnered with the St. Vincent Home for Children, because of its population of children with challenging life issues. “They deserve education, care, love, security, and ways to finding their identity and true self as members of a larger community,” he said.
As Msengi initially prepares to start the program, he has sought out broad themes of heroes and heroines, which he believes will help each child find his or her identity. He hopes to continue the program on a long-term basis.
Created in 2006, the Great Stories Club engages young adults with accessible, thought-provoking literature, facilitates humanities-based discussion with peers, and encourages library outreach partnerships with alternative schools, juvenile detention facilities and a variety of other youth-focused community organizations. This year, the program will reach 77 public libraries, 14 school/K-12 libraries, three college/university libraries, two community college libraries, three prison libraries and one tribal library.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose to shape a changing world. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi River’s rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of more than 13,000.
