Stories as Teaching

Stories as Teaching

Popular country music star, Trace Adkins, was asked in one of his hit songs why he sings country music songs with “twang” about “trains and hillbilly things.” The singer responded simply, “cause they’re songs about me.”  Many of us see our lives in the songs, poetry, and stories of others.  Through songs and stories we find words to put to feelings we have and we connect with feelings that inspire our words.  While we find ourselves in the stories others tell, there is nothing as satisfying and fulfilling as telling your own story.  Trace Adkins is trying to tell us that as he glorifies the pleasure of singing songs about his life, his dreams, his experiences.  These three to four minute tales put to music can weave complete stories.  These stories may tell of spectacular events, ponderings on life, love, history, patriotism, or far more common elements like tractors, cowboy hats, big trucks, mammas and friends lost along the way.   The point is that some writer/storyteller in some moment of inspiration scribbled or keyed some words, fitted them together into a form that no one else has ever quite formed before, and felt the contentment that comes from setting a story free to become what it will with those who hear or read it.  Sometimes these writers/storytellers are poets, sometimes singers, and sometimes, if we are very lucky, we find them in classrooms paving the way for future writers, storytellers, and poets. 

The best teachers have a particular knack for storytelling - taking the dry facts of history lifted from textbooks, dusting off the dates, times, places and names and injecting life into these captured moments that shaped our world, our country, and our lives.  Teachers are the ones who bring to life people and places long dead.  There is a craft that takes “talking” to the level of “telling.”  The cleverest of teachers know these tricks.  The shift from talker to teller is the one that makes the difference with our most difficult students to reach.  Children who have never heard a parent or a grandparent spin a tale, who have never lost themselves in a yarn, and who have never thought about the precious jewels of stories that lie inside each of them – these are the children who do not know the magic of story.  They have to be drawn in – slowly, almost absent-mindedly following a trail of breadcrumb story-kernels until they are lost in the forest of a spectacular word-journey into the past, the future, the heart of an earthworm, or floating on one of the world’s last remaining icebergs.  Textbooks won’t take them there.  Workbooks won’t take them there.  Computers won’t take them there.  Books and multi-media are wonderful components of the big picture of getting them there – but the only path that leads to loving language and the gift of story is the same oral tradition that has sustained life on this planet since the beginning – storytelling. 

It is my belief that the reason many teachers and administrators (and people in Washington who have committees to look into just these sorts of things) snub their noses at the value of storytelling as an integral part of content area instruction in the classroom is that it doesn’t cost anything, it isn’t glitzy, you can’t buy it in a pre-packaged box, and it didn’t make the short list for being “research based.”  It is just the most ancient, lasting, proven (Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Moses, Mohamed) device for reaching people and impacting lives since cavemen sat by fires and tried to make sense of their world.  In this time of performance measures, high-stakes testing, accountability, tracking, benchmarks, and bats in our belfries, let’s take a moment to try something that has moved people since the dawn of time.  Let’s tell some stories.  - Dr. Pam Petty, IRA Storyteller SIG newsletter, issue 3, spring 2008

Example of Cumulative Story for Classroom Instruction

     I selected to use a cumulative story as an example because they are pure fun.  Aside from the enjoyment they provide, there are several benefits to including cumulative tales in the classroom for instructional purposes.  Cumulative tales:

• improve oral fluency through repetition

• improve vocabulary development

• allow for choral reading/recitation ("safe" and inviting to struggling readers and ELL students)

• engage students in a positive literacy experience

• can be used as prompts for writing

• can be used as training for telling other stories

• encourage word play

     There are hundreds of cumulative tales found in cultures all over the world.  A couple you may recognize include:

• This is the House that Jack Built (http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/mothergoose/rhymes/thisisthehousethatjackbuilt.html)

• There was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly (http://www.poppyfields.net/poppy/songs/oldwoman.html) 

• The Old Woman and Her Pig

NOTE: This site contains expressions and phrases about pigs and hogs that are common in the English language:  http://www.pampetty.com/piglanguage.htm   

Classroom Suggestions:

Objectives:

1. Help students develop comprehension strategies to relate ideas, organize information, and distinguish fact from fantasy.  

2.  Help students learn to respond actively and imaginatively to literature.  

3.  Help students connect what they learn in school to what they do outside of school.

Activities:

1.  Have students read the following list (http://www.pampetty.com/piglanguage.htm) of "Idioms relating to pigs and hogs."  Working individually or in small groups, have students select one quote and (a) explain what it means (b) write a scenario in which the phrase would be used.  Let students share with others what they think the phrase means and either read aloud the context in which the phrase would be used or act it out.  

2.  Building on the previous experience, have students work in pairs to devise a short skit relating to one of the expressions.  Students can act it out in front of the class or a small group and let others determine which phrase they are indicating.  

3.  Have students read, chant, or sing the original "pig" songs listed below (http://www.pampetty.com/piglanguage.htm).   Ask students to refer to factual information they have collected in a learning log relating to pigs and determine which parts of each song are "fact" and which are "fantasy."  

4. Have students write their own original song including as much factual information as possible relating to pigs.  Other students can read or listen to the song and see if the fact agrees with what they have learned.  (NOTE:  A game format could be made with these songs with students including at least one totally "false" fact about pigs and other students identifying the false information.)  

5.  Have students read the original stories at the bottom of this site (http://www.pampetty.com/piglanguage.htm).   These stories reflect how our real-world experiences can relate to classroom learning.  Have students "critically" read the stories looking for items that confirm what they have learned about pigs.  Have students write their own true stories of an encounter they have had with an animal of some sort.  Students can then research information on that animal and see if the experience they had relates to what we know about that type of animal.  

http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-6.html

http://courses.wcupa.edu/johnson/tales/womanpig.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft05.htm

http://www.rickwalton.com/folktale/jacoba04.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULqUk2l-fH0 (video)

http://www.learningbooks.net/Buggylessons.html

http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/children/cumulative.html

http://www.islma.org/Monarch_Award_CD/Books/One_Dog_Canoe.htm

http://www.ayles.com/auntpitty2.html (note:  scroll down and you will see a link to my "Pigs" webpages)

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/
detailmini.jsp_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_
0=EJ590055&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ590055  (7th grade)

1.       Start by going to youtube and finding a video you want – copy the URL (go to Edit in your browser and click COPY) – this is one of my “great fall”:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9zm4senl2Q 

2.       Then PASTE (edit, PASTE) the URL in the box on this webpage:  http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/ --- and click DOWNLOAD --- put it in a folder where you can find it – “My Videos” (or whatever)

3.       You can watch it from there on your computer – if you want to convert it to another format (to play on your iPod, DVD player, etc) go here: http://www.media-convert.com/ --- see where it has the word FILE followed by a big text box?   Click on BROWSE and then find the video file you want to convert – leave the next setting on “automatically detect” type – then scroll down PAST THE ADVERTISEMENT (those are so annoying!) – next ….

 Output format   Select the format you want from this list – you will have to play with it, but typically I convert to .wmv (Windows Media player – for playback on computers), .avi (plays through Real Player on computer) or .mp4 (for iPod). 

5.        Click OK that you agree to the terms.  Then you will need to save the generated file to your computer!  Easy as pie. 

Good luck and may your daily life generate lovely stories,

A Position Statement from the Committee on Storytelling

A Statement Concerning the Importance of Storytelling in Education Presented by The Youth, Educators, and Storytellers Alliance - YES!  A Special Interest Group of the National Storytelling Network