ALL - Reading Together in Marion

ALL - Adult Lifelong Learning

*** Program registration and payment required ***

Reading Together in Marion
Thursday, April 12 & 19 at 10:30 am 

Have you ever wondered about the various ways a community comes together to help its residents learn to read and write? In this course, we will introduce you to a traveling exhibit developed by Ohio State Marion students that explores the legacy of literacy in Marion. 

Session One: We will explore how literacy impacts children's brains and keeps our brains healthy as we age. Then, we'll learn about how Ohio State Marion students researched the history of Marionites who worked together to establish the city's first public library in 1907 and then promoted literacy in all kinds of ways, through many civic organizations throughout the ensuing decades. Finally, we will share some of the ways current Marionites are continuing this tradition. 

Session Two: You will have the opportunity to develop and share your own literacy story. If you would like, you may even share this story as part of an international online oral history collection used by students and researchers around the world to understand the various ways people come together around literacy.

Each 1.5hr course is led by:
Ben McCorkle, Nikole Patson, and Margaret Sumner

Ben McCorkle, Professor of English, has been at OSU-Marion since 2005. His Ph.D. is from the Ohio State University. His research focuses on of how technology and communication influence one another at different moments in history. He teaches courses in writing, the history and theory of rhetoric, and digital media production. A co-director of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, he mentors new faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students as they work in collaboration with the project to curate, study, and teach about individuals' literacy experiences in contemporary culture.

Nikole Patson, Associate Professor of Psychology, has been at OSU-Marion since 2011. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on language comprehension and using language science to keep girls interested in science. She teaches courses in cognition, neuroscience, language 
processing, and creativity. In her Language Development course, her students partner with Let's Read 20 to get children in Marion excited about reading. 

Margaret Sumner,  Associate Professor of History, has been at OSU-Marion since 2006. Her Ph.D. is from Rutgers University. Her research focuses on early American educational and intellectual history. She teaches history courses that range from the American Revolution to the Gilded Age. She has been teaching a US women's history course, "Busy, Brilliant, and Bossy: Discovering Histories of American Women's Community Activism," in partnership with the Marion Women's Club since 2018.

For more information and a complete course list visit https://marionlibrary.org/all.