What is Literacy Unbound?

At the Literacy Unbound Institute, students and teachers work together to read a great work of literature. Here, we read a little bit differently, bringing literature into our bodies and onto the screen.

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Literacy Unbound — a signature initiative of the Center for Professional Education of Teachers (CPET) at Teachers College, Columbia University — is predicated on a belief in the power of play in the classroom and seeks to unbind traditional approaches to the teaching of reading and writing, troubling the divide between critical and creative thinking, demonstrating that intellectual rigor ultimately requires both.

Our approach brings teachers and students together as creative collaborators to re-imagine challenging, classic texts through multiple modalities. We reinvigorate classroom communities using arts-infused, project-based, collaborative curricula developed around a shared text, increasing student engagement and building community in the process. While many arts-integrated organizations work primarily with students, we believe that by positioning this work as teacher education, we can create enduring practices with sustainable impact.