What you're looking at
The stories presented here are based on real learning experiences. While some details have been adjusted to protect privacy, the contexts, growth, challenges, and “aha!” moments are true to life. Each one applies the STARR+ approach in a different context.
Two components of the Tell My Story With STARR+ program are shown working together: Story Core and Story Works.
A Story Core is the foundation
The structured record a learner creates through the STARR+ reflection process, capturing what happened, what they did, what they learned, and how that learning applies going forward.
Story Works is what you do with it
The tools that adapt one Story Core for different purposes: interviews, résumés, cover letters, scholarship essays, networking conversations, assignments, applications.
Student stories
2 storiesEach one carried from Story Core through Story Works, so you can see what the reflection produced and where every line of it came from.
Applied social science student
From a class project to something I could say out loud
A semester studying food insecurity and food waste became a Story Core, then a micro narrative fit for an interview. Annotated to show how the Story Core transforms.
Read the storyCriminology senior
One experience, four different answers
The least glamorous job on a capstone team was cleaning messy public datasets. The Story Core and more: an interview answer, a résumé bullet, a portfolio caption, and a full narrative.
Read the storyFacilitator reflections
2 reflectionsPractioner reflections: what they did, what shifted, and what they took away. Each closes with notes on the facilitation moves worth borrowing.
Online tutor
From starting over to starting from strength
An adult returning student saw years of managing restaurants and supporting classrooms as irrelevant to college. Nothing about her circumstances changed during the session. The question she was asking did.
Read the reflectionLearning practice coach
Scaffolded reflection as developmental practice
A graduating student could say how his courses felt, but not what he had learned. Written as a full STARR+ story about the coach's own practice, so it doubles as the model for staff reflecting on their facilitation.
Read the reflectionThe power of structured reflection and storytelling
The capability was there. STARR+ made it visible.