It's also helped attendance across my sections this semester to bemore open to what I can learn from them. If we can be vulnerable and give them space to teach us and to be experts of material, it goes a long way toward community building.

When students tell me they love something I've never heard of (like Marble Hornets!) I pause class so we can look at it together. This way, I can tie course concepts immediatelyto their media. I hope creating a "shame free" policy helps students open up more in all of our classes.

Often they cite parents or teachers who made them feel their interests, games, and reading materials weren't "good enough." I have a "shame free" policy in my class so that we share media openly and, like you, ask students to synthesize their interest and observations with course materials.

Thanks for sharing this and engaging our collective curiosity about what is happening with our students. One discussion I've had is students are embarrassed to tell us what games they're playing, what they're reading (everything from creepypasta to AO3) or comfort shows they've watched 4 times.