Former National Public Radio host Alex Blumberg calls audio \u201cthe most emotionally honest storytelling format,\u201d and last Friday Wabash freshmen in the College\u2019s Liberal Art Immersion Program (WLAIP) proved his point.<\/p>\n
You\u00a0can add \u201cexpressive, \u201ccreative,” and \u201cbrave\u201d to that description.<\/p>\n
Asked to complete an \u201caudio essay\u201d as their final assignment for the English course in the program, the freshmen dug deep into the readings, their lives, and the places they grew up to produce original, surprising, and often moving narratives.<\/p>\n
And their classmates\u2014along with Wabash faculty and staff invited to the \u201clistening party\u201d in Lilly Library\u2014got to hear it all, up close and personal.<\/p>\n
The students also praised the class\u2014taught by Professors Crystal Benedicks, Helen Hudson, and Jill Lamberton\u2014and WLAIP program itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur class discussion was led by students, which I\u2019d never experienced before,\u201d David Ortega \u201920, of Hammond, IN said. \u201cI was finally in a school atmosphere that gave me freedom to be creative, while still pushing me to present intelligent, meaningful work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned not to be afraid of not fitting in,\u201d said Emmanuel Nordelo \u201920 of Miami, FL. \u201cI can use writing to get my story heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students seemed to enjoy listening to one another\u2019s essays as much as the guests at Friday\u2019s listening party.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the camaraderie of other students is probably the secret weapon in this program,\u201d said Dean of the College Scott Feller. \u201cI already knew we had great faculty and staff who\u00a0are all in, but the extent to which students enjoy and learn from one another in this program is remarkable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys learn a lot about themselves, and they\u2019ll come back to campus in a couple of weeks a step up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more about the essays in the photos above.<\/p>\n
\u2014Steve Charles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former National Public Radio host Alex Blumberg calls audio \u201cthe most emotionally honest storytelling format,\u201d and last Friday Wabash freshmen in the College\u2019s Liberal Art Immersion Program (WLAIP) proved his point. You\u00a0can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus","category-works-in-progress","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2016\/08\/jesus-and-helen-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2695,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions\/2695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}