Albenga hosts University at School: territorial reading workshop between school and university
A traveling reading workshop, created with the University of Genoa, engages pupils, teachers and students in participatory storytelling that invokes the fantastical pair.
Albenga.
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University at School is a territorial laboratory of research, updating and innovation born from the collaboration between the University of Genoa and the Diocesan School Center "Redemptoris Mater" in Albenga. The continuity project, proposed for the current school year to the "Ester Siccardi" and "San Giorgio" preschools and the first A and second A and B classes of the Diocesan School Center's elementary school, aims to create a bridge between academia, school and community through an itinerant reading workshop. "it is a traveling reading workshop whose main objective is to nurture the imagination of a thinking childhood in the great Sea of Stories," explains the Center's pedagogist, Stefania Trifilio. In effect, it is a collaborative space for research, updating and innovation, born out of contacts and sharing with the University, designed to create a bridge between academia, schools and the community.
Teachers and children will exchange different picture books in the early months of the school year, and it will be great surprise for everyone to open the "big bag" to discover the title of the book to be read and then pass on to other children. "it will be great surprise for everyone to open the 'big bag' to discover the title of the book to be read."
Students from the secondary school and those from the High School of Human Sciences of the "Redemptoris Mater" School Center will also be involved; the former as listeners and, at the end of the year, they will welcome the children from the Kindergarten and Primary school, protagonists of the project, who will become narrators of the stories they drew and wrote using the 'two little words' entrusted to them by the teachers. "at the end of the year they will welcome kindergarten and elementary school children, protagonists of the project, who will become storytellers of the stories they drew and wrote using the 'two little words' entrusted to them by the teachers."
It is actually a university territorial laboratory i.e., a collaborative space for research, updating and innovation; born out of contacts and sharing with the university it is designed to create a bridge between academia, schools and the community. The creative pair stems from the principle that the juxtaposition of semantically distant words stimulates imagination and divergent thinking. "the imaginative pair," as pointed out by Gianni Rodari in his paper Grammar of Imagination, consists of juxtaposing two semantically distant words to generate a story, stimulating creativity: examples such as "dog selling closets" or "walking on chocolate road" are cited.
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Humanities High School students will be invited, through the Transversal Skills and Orientation Pathways renamed by Decree-Law No. 127 of Sept. 9, 2025 to Training School Work, to directly experience the activity and reflect on the pedagogical meanings of narrative play. "to directly experience the activity and reflect on the pedagogical meanings of narrative play."
Once the first part of the project is over, school teachers will be engaged in a refresher course on Rodari's "fantastic pair." The combination of semantically distant words such as "road" and "chocolate," a seemingly meaningless juxtaposition, creates a short circuit that forces thinking to imagine new relationships.
Other cue for educational deepening will be offered by the "fantastic" of Novalis, not understood as a literary genre, but as a conception of a logic of imagination that creates and transforms reality, as opposed to rationalist logic: "this fantastic is based on the idea that imagination can unite opposites (finite and infinite, spirit and matter) and that poetry is the creative act par excellence, the vehicle of this transformation." So, the project calls every human being to narrate himself.
The course will then enter the last operational phase and it is the children who will unleash their imagination and make creativity accessible through thinking, writing and drawing stories and making their own picture books. The "University at School" project in a nutshell says that school is cultural education and instruction or love of knowledge and knowledge that calls each of us to go beyond usual patterns for a different living.
Thanks are due to the University of Genoa Professor. Anna Antoniazzi, a regular lecturer in the Department of Education, and Pedagogist Dr. Marco Scarella, subject matter expert for the chair of Children's Literature.Albenga.
University at School is a territorial laboratory of research, updating and innovation born from the collaboration between the University of Genoa and the Diocesan School Center "Redemptoris Mater" in Albenga. The continuity project, proposed for the current school year to the "Ester Siccardi" and "San Giorgio" preschools and the first A and second A and B classes of the Diocesan School Center's elementary school, aims to create a bridge between academia, school and community through an itinerant reading workshop. "it is a traveling reading workshop whose main objective is to nurture the imagination of a thinking childhood in the great Sea of Stories," explains the Center's pedagogist, Stefania Trifilio. In effect, it is a collaborative space for research, updating and innovation, born out of contacts and sharing with the University, designed to create a bridge between academia, schools and the community.
Teachers and children will exchange different picture books in the early months of the school year, and it will be great surprise for everyone to open the "big bag" to discover the title of the book to be read and then pass on to other children. "it will be great surprise for everyone to open the 'big bag' to discover the title of the book to be read."
Students from the secondary school and those from the High School of Human Sciences of the "Redemptoris Mater" School Center will also be involved; the former as listeners and, at the end of the year, they will welcome the children from the Kindergarten and Primary school, protagonists of the project, who will become narrators of the stories they drew and wrote using the 'two little words' entrusted to them by the teachers. "at the end of the year they will welcome kindergarten and elementary school children, protagonists of the project, who will become storytellers of the stories they drew and wrote using the 'two little words' entrusted to them by the teachers."
It is actually a university territorial laboratory i.e., a collaborative space for research, updating and innovation; born out of contacts and sharing with the university it is designed to create a bridge between academia, schools and the community. The creative pair stems from the principle that the juxtaposition of semantically distant words stimulates imagination and divergent thinking. "the imaginative pair," as pointed out by Gianni Rodari in his paper Grammar of Imagination, consists of juxtaposing two semantically distant words to generate a story, stimulating creativity: examples such as "dog selling closets" or "walking on chocolate road" are cited.
Humanities High School students will be invited, through the Transversal Skills and Orientation Pathways renamed by Decree-Law No. 127 of Sept. 9, 2025 to Training School Work, to directly experience the activity and reflect on the pedagogical meanings of narrative play. "to directly experience the activity and reflect on the pedagogical meanings of narrative play."
Once the first part of the project is over, school teachers will be engaged in a refresher course on Rodari's "fantastic pair." The combination of semantically distant words such as "road" and "chocolate," a seemingly meaningless juxtaposition, creates a short circuit that forces thinking to imagine new relationships.
Other cue for educational deepening will be offered by the "fantastic" of Novalis, not understood as a literary genre, but as a conception of a logic of imagination that creates and transforms reality, as opposed to rationalist logic: "this fantastic is based on the idea that imagination can unite opposites (finite and infinite, spirit and matter) and that poetry is the creative act par excellence, the vehicle of this transformation." So, the project calls every human being to narrate himself.
The course will then enter the last operational phase and it is the children who will unleash their imagination and make creativity accessible through thinking, writing and drawing stories and making their own picture books. The "University at School" project in a nutshell says that school is cultural education and instruction or love of knowledge and knowledge that calls each of us to go beyond usual patterns for a different living.
Thanks are due to the University of Genoa Professor. Anna Antoniazzi, a regular lecturer in the Department of Education, and Pedagogist Dr. Marco Scarella, subject matter expert for the chair of Children's Literature.
