Exploring "Why Storytelling in the Classroom Matters"

Just a couple of weeks ago, Matthew James Friday's article on storytelling appeared in Edutopia.



Why Storytelling in the Classroom Matters



Fortuitous timing for  class, to be sure.



What I noticed more importantly is that list of suggestions on how to become a storyteller.

So How Do You Become a Storyteller?
I recommend the following:

1. Read as many different world folktales, fables, myths, and legends as you can.
2. Watch professional storytellers and take notes about how they do it. Every storyteller is different, and you can learn something from them all.
3. Build your confidence by reading your students picture books or chapter books with an interesting voice. Stop to ask questions. Make the book reading interactive. It will help you create a shared event with a story.
4. Pick stories with small numbers of characters and repeating events, as these are easiest to remember. Having said that, pick any story you like -- no, that you love! If it captivates you, it will captivate the younger ones, too.
5. Write the stories down in a notebook. Writing helps you remember a story, and it models the same to the children.
6. When you start "telling" your story, it's OK to have the book nearby and to take a look at it if you forget a part. Don't be too hard on yourself. You are a student again.
7. Get yourself a "prop box" made of old bits of linen, and fill it with hats from charity shops and random objects that children can use imaginatively. I got a lot of my materials from recycling centers.

What would happen if your students each chose one of those seven to focus on for their own development as storytellers?



What would happen if you chose one for yourself from those seven with which to develop greater facility within the first six weeks of school?



Which would you choose?



Which do you find daunting?



Which would come most natural?



One of my professional goals this year will be to keep a proper notebook.  I tend to scatter my thoughts across space and time in the shape of recycled handouts with lesson plans scribbled upon the back and a string of half-tweets and sorta-emails left in various digital environs.



I bought a simple, generic moleskin wannabe notebook, blank pages, sized small, covered in black.



I also bought a  spiral bound sketchbook of recycled plain white sheets.  It is much larger, less easily wielded but should plenty of space to vizthink, doodle, scrawl, capturemy ideas as well as possible via the static image.

I plan to stuff it full of stories.  Bits and pieces.  Things I may use for lessons.  Things I may use for theater.  Things I may share.  Things I may keep to myself.   Characters.  Plots.  Emotions.  If we take a moment to remember those core elements of story, it can help us organize our notes in ways that may make accessing them later, just that much more meaningful.

Then again, just the act of writing them down in one place?  That would be a great step for me.

What about you and your students?