Benefits of Storytelling and Americans All to Students and Schools
Schools, students and students’ families, staff, friends and alumni participate in Americans All at no cost and receive a free, one-year trial to our Social Legacy Network.
Storytelling affords students both school and personal benefits.
- Stories begin at birth, and legacies are built each time a personal, academic or professional milestone is achieved. Every student has important experiences and lessons learned to share with family, friends and future generations. Creating and publishing a story about themselves helps students develop skills in critical thinking, communicating, researching and, especially, writing—skills needed to help ensure their success in college and/or the workforce.
- By learning to use concise language and enhancing stories with photographs and other media, students can record important events and memories as well as share their pride in their ethnic and cultural identity.
- Publishing a legacy story on our Web-based Heritage Honor Roll ensures the significance of a lifetime will not be forgotten and enables students to have a permanent and an accessible social media presence that truly describes who they are.
- Storytelling can also be a wonderful intergenerational bonding experience that builds empathy, compassion and understanding.
- By helping others less skilled in the art of writing and by using of technology to incorporate images and recordings into their legacy stories, a student can earn service-learning credits.
- Students can help families that lost a member(s) to the pandemic gain closure.
- Helping others create and enhance a story also demonstrates to prospective employers and postsecondary institutions a student’s character and appreciation for how volunteerism benefits a community.
Although we are no longer active in curriculum areas (focusing instead on providing students involved in non-academic school activities, like school clubs and teams, with valuable resources), member families can still access our existing K–12 supplemental social studies information—a $500+ value.
Benefits of Storytelling and Americans All to Schools
Schools participate in Americans All for free because they reinforce our goals of creating and sharing legacy stories and supporting students participation in non-academic school activities*. In addition, schools:
- Receive a free story on their school that is published on our Heritage Honor Roll, in multiple languages, if desired.
- Enable student teams and club to create Legacy Partner landing pages to host stories of their members.
- Host, on their free Americans All Legacy Partner home page(s), stories from our Heritage Honor Roll created by their students, staff, friends and alumni.
- Allow students to receive credit for volunteer activities that are sponsored by the school.
- Provide local business, cottage industries and professional service providers with their membership code to gain revenue.
*Non-academic activities include, but are not limited to, extra-curricular activities such as sports, performing arts, volunteerism, student government, and clubs that focus on topics such as academics, vocational and professional, service, arts and crafts, mechanical shops, hobbies, publications/media, languages, religion, and so on. They also include events like excursions and social outreach programs, to name a few. These activities provide a channel for reinforcing the lessons learned in the classroom, offering students the opportunity to apply academic skills in a real-world context, and thus help contribute to a well-rounded education. Our storytelling tool and outreach concepts can be quite useful in many of these areas.
Heritage Honor Roll Stories
Americans All members can create and edit a legacy story and share and preserve it forever on our Web-based Heritage Honor Roll and on the home pages of our Legacy Partners. The story can:
- Contain up to 2,000 words, of which 1,000 can be password protected.
- Be published in multiple languages and be updated at no cost.
- Be enhanced with photographs, home movies and audio recordings.
- Include links to other Heritage Honor Roll legacy stories, social media sites and other Web pages.
- Be shortened to print on an 8½” x 11” template to share with family and friends.
Click here for tips on “How to create a legacy story.”
Click here for tips on “Storytelling for younger children.”
Click here to view our program overview
Click here to register for Americans All so you can create and share a legacy story and receive program benefits.
Click here to learn how your family can become a Legacy Partner.
Any questions? Please contact Americans All.