This past year, I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with students in classroom settings trying to figure out how quickly I can get them up and telling a story. I’ve talked about some experiments in earlier posts. What strikes me over and over again is the difference between the word on the page and the word as it is spoken. When emerging readers read a story, it is very difficult for them to get those words off the page, into their heads, and then speak the story in their own language. This difficulty is something I’ve observed time and time again, and it seems to me this translation – into an image, and then through some alchemical process, into the speaker’s own language – is at the heart of a complete literacy and fluency with both kinds of language – oral and written. Children live in an oral world, and are making the transition to the world of literacy and it’s not an easy one to make.
I might add that as a storyteller who has passed my literacy tests (well, okay, I haven’t, but think I could if it was mandated, which it’s not) , I still have a very difficult time lifting a story off the page and making it my own. Many times I’ve read a story that I like and want to tell, but my performance of it always falls flat – it’s not alive yet. Then, sometimes, I hear someone tell the story, and I know how to do it. It’s my hearing the story that brings it to life.
I had a recent conversation with storyteller Donald Davis about this, and Donald observed that young readers are reading words, and that’s what they see when they’re trying to tell the story – the words they read, not the pictures in their heads. When they hear a story, they don’t see the words, they see the pictures. That makes sense to me. A lot of times, when I’m first learning a story from a page, I actually can picture where on the page that particular part of the story is – I’m stuck with the words, not the images.
But I continue to be fixated on the notion that if I could just get the kid to tell the story using images, not words, something is accomplished. Developing orality is important at any age, and contributes to literacy. And I’ve noticed that, like me, when kids hear me tell a story, it is exponentially easier for them to tell it themselves. Again, Donald observes this is because they have the images in their heads. More than that, though, I think that there is an affective component – the emotional impact of the story is greater when someone is telling it, and that’s where stories have a particular power – they’re both affective and cognitive. Emotional events have meaning, and meaning lodges in someone’s mind and heart.
So, back to my original question – how do I get a kid up and telling a story as quickly as possible?
In February, I was in Utah being filmed working with kids on storytelling. I came up with a process to try and get them telling as quickly as possible, so we could then work on their delivery and performance They were fifth graders, and responded stunningly well. Since then, I’ve used it effectively all the way down to second grade, with some slight modifications. Here’s the steps I used.
1) The teacher (storyteller) tells a story with a straightforward plot and clear episodes. Note that I say “tells”. This requires that the teacher learn the story and can tell it simply without the aid of a book. It might work as a reading exercise, but it’s the actual oral narrative – with no intermediary of the written word – that will facilitate the learning of the story. Tell the story simply – for the purposes of the exercise, a story five minutes long (or even slightly less) is good.
2) In the group, afterwards, have the group reconstruct the steps of the story. As each incident is recounted, write the events up on a whiteboard or flip chart in short simple sentences. Each event/scene should be captured in one sentence – don’t worry about small details – only the ones that are absolutely crucial to the story. The question, “What happens next?” is the prompt that leads to this simple outline.
3) Briefly go over the outline after it’s finished to help fix it in the student’s minds.
4) Have students pair off and let each person tell the story to their partner. If the teller gets stuck, they may get help from either the chart or a short prompt by their partner. When the first teller finishes, their partner then tells the story. Their telling will likely take longer than the teacher’s recounting.
5) Get back together in the group and debrief. Ask about what was easy and what was hard. Ask whose partner told the story well, and what they did that made it interesting. You will find some children are already experimenting with the story.
6) Give up your seat by the story chart, and ask for a volunteer to start the story, letting them take the “storytelling seat”. I find that sitting, initially, is a little easier and produces a more natural performance. Let that person start the story, and at a natural break (using the outline as a guide) ask for a volunteer to take over. Initially, look for a confident student (they’ll volunteer). If you know the students, you may encourage shyer students to try as the story progresses. You may gently guide the tellers if they need help or forget something.
7) When the joint performance is done, ask for a volunteer who thinks they can tell the story all the way through. Help them through the story. Discuss with the group what they liked about the telling.
This exercise will take 40 to 45 minutes. By the end they will have gone over the story (at least in outline) seven times, and will have it firmly in mind. Different approaches to performance will also begin to emerge.
Through all the years of telling stories, I’ve been only more and more convinced that if a kid can stand up in front of someone and tell a story, they’re going to be okay. I still believe it. This is one way to make it happen.
Any other ideas?
A first grade teacher in the school where I volunteer has her kids make a storyboard of the story instead of doing a written outline. Probably first-graders are less inhibited about drawing.
My mom who was a first grade teacher brought her felt board home. She TOLD the story with the felt pictures and after ONE time she just left it around and we played with it. Billy Goat’s Gruff is so deep in me I’m still scared that sometime the ending is going to be different and the troll is going to get those goats!
Bill I love listening to you ponder and experiment your way into helping kids. You are the ultimate storyteller/storyteacher.
Thanks for continuing to puzzle it out for the kids, teachers, and tellers of the world.
Marni
My children go to a place in Loveland, Ohio where they re-tell stories they’ve read and discussed by constructing them in trays of sand (picture a room of miniatures such as happy meal toys and the like that they can use to accomplish this). They then build a story of their own in sandtrays. At the end of the session, they narrate a story to go along with their trays. Their leader in this activity has been amazingly creative in coming up with this way for the kids to express themselves both visually and verbally. We love it!
Okay…. I haven’t thought about ‘teaching’ storytelling. I love this. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Bill, I would include activities to “trick” the student teller into a creative exploration and retelling by giving them a simple problem to solve with the story. For example, after the brief telling and review, ask them how they might retell the story using a piece of paper or a yard stick. By focusing their attention on a tangible task, all sorts of thinking and performing behaviors show up. Invariably, the effort to solve the problem brings out the actor in them as they attempt to use the object. As well, the inductive thinking that expands the story shows up when they discover possibilities in the object that they can justify in the story. This always works better for me than asking them outright to act or rewrite. In then end we always discover that a story is so much more than “what happens.”
David-
Good idea. This reminds me of an exercise by a director I worked with, who had me tell the story while i was putting little pebbles in a milk bottle. the physical action took my mind off the performance, and eventually, I was telling the story very naturally, and putting the pebbles in the bottle became something that actually added to the performance. Like chopping onions or combing hair – telling stories is what we do while we’re busy living.
Absolutely! What Donald calls just “talking.”
Hi Bill,
Thanks for sharing your success with the students. I also do storyboarding with my students as mentioned by others. I also use story pyramids but this year I was searching for other tools to help the students flesh out the sensory details as well as sequencing. To that end I designed two new exercises.
The first is called Character Creation and may be found on my blog here: http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2011/03/character-creation-story-troupe.html
The other is called What’s Driving Your Story and may be found here: http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-driving-your-story.html
.
Character Creation specifically helped them with the sensory components of the story and their telling’s were immediately richer. The second tool helped them remember the important moments in their stories.
I hope you will find them useful in your future work, as I will yours. Thank you!
Karen
Bill,
Loved what you said about the challenge of moving into images. a couple of things I use to help into the image world: after the group ‘brainstorming’ of the general outline, creating a story board with stick figures – working with a partner they talk through it and just create snap shots of the main scenes.
another thing that seams to help is having them close their eyes and guide them through seeing the story as a movie in their minds eye. encouraging them to imagine a dark screen at first with only the sounds at the beginning of the story, then the light comes up and we “see” the opening scene – the camera zooms in and we see more details of the place and who is there etc. I encourage them to imagine it in their own way – no right or wrong – after thins exercise it’s easier to tell in your own words because you already saw it.
Just a few thoughts…
Regarding the emotional and cognitive content of telling a story…this is why almost all my guidance lessons are built around traditional tales. The kids remember the story and the lesson months and months later. They didn’t before that.
Regarding orality and literacy:
I see so many children who struggle with reading and writing, but have brilliant oral comprehension. When I begin asking questions about their skills, abilities and classroom performance, I see that they aren’t so much “learning disabled” as they are oral, as opposed to literate. These kids would have been our storytellers a couple of hundred years ago. Before we had widespread literacy, these kids would have been considered successful at whatever they wanted to do. They have a wide range of skills, including the verbal, but because they can’t quite get a full grasp on print, our system, our cultural standards, make them feel inadequate. If we had more focus on orality in our teaching, in how we taught the literate side of language arts, they would have more of a chance to be successful. Unfortunately, I usually get blank stare when I approach this and the oral is usually noted down as a sort of accommodation to the literate.
Hi Bill,
I love this. Again, like all the others I have the kids do storyboard, especially the younger ones as they can draw but cannot always write.
What I do when I have a short workshop is have the class read the story together passing the story around so they get to read and listen. We then write on pieces of scrap paper parts of the story they remember. Then I have the students put it in the sequence of the story. Kids usually go all over the place, starting at the end quite often! Adult can do it sequentially. Going over the sequence we usually find some points missing so add those. We then run through what has turned out to be bullet points of the story. This pulls them away from the written word, then we begin working on learning it. I have had kids do this and be able to perform in tandem or tridem (?!) at an evening literacy night. It is very exciting when kids pick it up that quickly.
Last week I was working with high school students and we talked about point of entry to a story and that brought up some VERY cool ways of retelling a story.
Thanks Bill for being so open about your methods and sharing with the rest of us!
Peace,
Simon
The disconnect between written and told stories works the other way too: told stories don’t seem to translate very well into written form. A number of children’s books are attempts to make that jump, and with a few rare exceptions they flopped. And yet told stories are the basis of literature the world over. Amazing!
When I work with student I ask them to start with what happened first and then tell from the incident(picture) and move through the beginning, middle and the end. We draw pictures, write out words, and act it out. These were handicapped student that I work with for 33 years in Special Education at the high school level.
Conversely, a good way to get a young, reluctant writer to write is to have him/her tell the story first and then write it one sentence at a time. Verbal expression comes first. When a child is older, he/she can think the story first rather than telling it aloud. Then the next step is to write it.
Hello Bill
Thank you for sharing and inspiring!
Sometimes I tell a story and then ask the students to retell it from a different perspective. I send them off in pairs to see the story through the eyes of one of the other or minor characters. Sometimes the results are hilarious and other times truly humbling. I have experienced great empathy and wit through these exercises.
Using story cards as prompts is also a great way to get young ones telling stories. The cards with pictures (some themed images, some random) are dealt out in a small circle and each student tells one to three sentences before the next one takes over. I adore the stories that are built that way.
Most children are natural tellers and if storytelling is a game even the quieter ones will join in.
Or take a well known story, like the Billy Goats Gruff mentioned, and give it a different cultural flavour. Get the students to retell it in Africa, Mexico, Australia…..
Most of all keep up the good work.
Love and inspiration
Evita
Storytelling is a licence to dream while you are awake
( Eve Moonyara Hofstetter Storyteller)