Story Pirates
Shiver Me Timbers! Collaborating with Creativity
When the Story Pirates visit CFK's schools, they bring along fuzzy monsters, Viking costumes, flying cats, and sacks of treasure for an experience that illustrates the power of writing in a way students will never forget. But don’t let the playful name or wild style fool you: the Story Pirates is one of New York’s most highly-respected arts education organizations. In 2004, CFK helped launch the Story Pirates and today continues to fund programs in all four of our schools. The goal is to help children find a love of creative writing and provide the tools they need to become confident writers and speakers.
Our partnership with the Story Pirates enables students to participate in creative writing workshops, based on New York State’s English Language Arts curriculum, which help third and fourth graders explore elements of character, plot, and setting in their own writing. While writing teachers work closely with students to develop language skills, actors and puppets delight the children and challenge them to write more. At the end of the workshops, the Story Pirates return with new costumes and props to mount an all-school assembly featuring stories written by the kids themselves, who then get to stand before hundreds of cheering classmates and take a bow in recognition of their work.
Described by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as “literacy programming brought to life by world-class actors," the CFK/Story Pirates program leaves students excited about their ability to tell stories and inspires them to keep writing, long after the program has ended.
Program Mission & Goals:
- Celebrate the words and ideas of young people and to create confident, literate students equipped with a variety of tools for written, verbal, and artistic self-expression
- Original arts and literacy programs teach and encourage children through collaboration with grown-ups
- Improve the relevancy and effectiveness of classroom and extracurricular learning
- Create confident children who carry their ability to express themselves into adulthood
- Build strong communities that celebrate the value of young voices from diverse backgrounds