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DOCUMENT RESUME CS 215 765 ED 405 589 Roney, R. Craig AUTHOR Storytelling in the Classroom: Some Theoretical TITLE Thoughts. PUB DATE 96 NOTE 4p. Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) PUB TYPE Journal Articles (080) (120) Storytelling World; V9 p7-9 Win-Spr 1996 JOURNAL CIT MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Audience Awareness; Classroom Communication; DESCRIPTORS Classroom Techniques; Creative Activities; *Creative Expression; Creative Thinking; Elementary Secondary Education; *Interpersonal Communication; Learning Strategies; Literacy; *Story Telling; *Student Development; Student Participation; Teaching Methods Learning Environment IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT In its most basic form, storytelling is a process where a person (the teller), using vocalization, narrative structure, and mental imagery, communicates with the audience who also use mental imagery and, in turn, communicate back to the teller primarily through body language and facial expression in an ongoing communication cycle. Storytelling is co-creative and interactive. It is one of the most powerful forms of art/communication known to humans and this explains why it possesses such great potential as a teaching-learning tool. A fundamental curriculum goal is helping children grow into adults who participate actively and competently in the democratic process. For storytelling to be successful,.teller and audience must collaborate to create the story, providing children with practice in several social skills, problem solving, exercise for the left and right brain hemispheres, and literacy development. Employing storytelling in the classroom on a regular basis is a sound teaching/learning strategy, because, as an art form and means of communication, it builds on children's preschool strengths and oral language expertise to help them successfully develop social, intellectual, and linguistic competencies. (CR) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Storytelling in the Classroom: Thoughts Some Theoretical Curriculum Implications THE DECISION TO USE STORYTELLING Discovering what children learn © 1996 in the K-12 classroom in an inte- through storytelling and the role it can by gral way is problematic. The play in the K-12 curriculum must begin Dr. R. Craig common public perception is that sto- with basic curriculum theory. In formal Roney, rytelling is of little more use than as an educational settings, the teaching- Wayne State entertaining diversion. Admittedly, learning process is initiated when University, both tellers and their audiences appear teachers identify goals of instruction. A 287 Education, to enjoy themselves, and some learning most fundamental goal for schools in Detroit, theorists believe that humans learn best our country is that children grow into Michigan when they enjoy what they are learn- adults who participate actively and 48202 ing. But what do children learn, if any- competently in our democracy. While thing at all, during a storytelling expe- this requires teachers to help children rience? Little concrete learning appears master a multitude of skills and abili- to be taking place. ties, several specific ones appear to be In truth, much learning does occur critical. Children must develop suffi- but because it is primarily cerebral, the cient social skill to be able to cooperate learning isn't readily observable. In- with people of diverse needs and values deed the act of storytelling itself ap- in order to make our democracy work. pears difficult to define because so They must become competent decision much of what takes place in a storytel- makers and develop mentally to their ling session involves unobservable fullest potential, and they must become mental processing by both the teller and literate. audience. As such, storytelling is both an art Yet the potential of storytelling as a form and a means of communication. Social Skill Development viable teaching-learning tool can be For storytelling to be successful, As art, storytelling involves creativity. recognized only if its inherent nature is But the creativity is shared between both teller and audience must collabo- clearly understood. rate to create the story. As such, story- teller and audience. The teller creates telling provides children with practice the story line and delivers it orally to Storytelling Defined in several social skills. Cooperation is the listeners, who then create mental In its most basic form, storytelling required of children as members of the images and deliver back to the teller is a process where a person (the teller), audience. Skill in reading body lan- reactions to the story line. The reaction, using vocalization, narrative structure, guage, thinking on one's feet, and so- in turn, affects the teller's choice of and mental imagery communicates cial negotiation are necessities for chil- words, emphasis on plot development, with other humans (the audience) who dren as tellers. Moreover, stories and style of delivery. This co-creative also use mental imagery and, in turn, interchange between teller and audi- populated by characters from diverse communicate back to the teller primar- ence continues for the entirety of the cultural backgrounds help children to ily via body language and facial ex- story, thus marking storytelling as an develop an understanding of and empa- pression. The communication cycle is thy for people unlike themselves as act of communication. As communica- ongoing, and in the process a "story" is well as to identify their own unique tion, then, storytelling is interactive, created. Diagramatically storytelling immediate, and very personala ne- place in human history. These same takes the following form: stories provide children with arche- gotiation between this teller and this typal social problem-solving situ- audience at this time and in this place, Vocalization ations, but because the role of all par- never to be duplicated in precisely the Narrative Structure same way again. It is as a result of this ticipants in storytelling is an active one, ill Mental Imagery co-creative, interactive, immediate, each storytelling event provides both NIP personal, and one-time nature that sto- teller and audience with active practice Teller . STORY i Audience rytelling is one of the most powerful in problem solving. forms of art/communication known to Mental Development Mental Imagery humans and also explains why it pos- 11111 Problem solving involves higher- Body Language sesses such great potential as a teach- Facial Expression level thinking. The notion that thinking ing-learning tool. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND 7 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL Office of Educational Research and Improvement HAS BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION Storytelling World, Winter/Spring, 1996, Page 7 CENTER (ERIC/ o This document has been reproduced es TO THE EDUCATIONAL ESOURCEP.'";.7- : -7- / ,-,-: roints of sr** or egnmens stated in tnisdoc eived from the person or organization r ment do not necessarily represent official INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) iginating it. . OE RI position or policy. Minor changes have been made to improve , _ . '-------11ST COPY AVAITARIze. , reproductiOn Cleanly. 2 subjects or in a piecemeal fashion hav- some years now and has led to investi- is a hierarchical taxonomy of mental ing little or no relevance to the real gation and experimentation to attempt skills has received increased attention world of the child? How frequently do to solve the mystery. Adding to the by curriculum theorists (Bloom, Engle- some teachers, either overtly or subtly, perplexity of the mystery is the discov- hart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956). communicate to children that mastery ery by researchers that the mental proc- Teachers are now being urged to design of reading and writing is not expected esses involved in reading and writing classroom activities that enable chil- and, sadly, how often do children come are precisely the same as those in- dren to engage in thinking at all levels to believe in that judgment even in the volved in listening and speaking. If this but particularly at the highest levels, earliest grades? is true, how is it, then, that so many because thinking at any level includes children fail to learn to read and write thinking at all levels beneath it. (Bloom The Role of Storytelling by age 18 when they were so successful ranks from highest to lowest the fol- Storytelling must not be viewed as a at learning to listen and speak by age 5 lowing types of thinking: evaluative, cure-all for what ails literacy programs (particularly since 12 years of intensive synthetic, analytical, applicative, com- in school. Indeed, it is only one among instruction is involved in the former prehension, and memory.) Clearly, sto- many strategies that can be employed while little if any formal instruction is rytelling involves thinking at the high- to help children become competent and involved in the latter)? est levels. Synthetic (or creative) confident readers and writers. Yet it is thinking is inherent in the storytelling an extremely potent one. Its power Cambourne's Theory process itself whereas evaluative think- emanates from its inherent nature as an Currently, some theorists (Cam- ing occurs vicariously as teller and interactive, immediate, co-creative, bourne included) suggest that this dis- audience co-create solutions to the personal, and one-time means of com- crepancy is the result of significant dif- problems of the characters in the story. munication and from its consistency ferences between the way in which Moreover, storytelling provides ex- with the conditions for linguistic suc- children learn to listen/speak and the ercise for the right as well as the left way in which they are taught to cess espoused by Cambourne. hemispheres of each child's brain but Clearly, participation by children in read/write. Cambourne's research and does so in such a way that the two must storytelling, either as a member of the theorizing has led him to conclude that, work in concert with each other. The audience or as the teller, involves im- in order for formal literacy programs to left, or logical, side provides the narra- mersion and active engagement in a approach the success rate extant in ba- tive structure or framework for the meaningful language experience. Re- sic language acquisition, the conditions story while, at the same time, the right, sponsibility for the success of a story- under which children typically learn to more creative, side generates the telling session is dependent upon the read and write must be replaced by the imaginative story content being visual- children who participate (whether they diametrically opposite conditions that ized and co-created by the teller and the are telling the story or listening to it) exist when the preschool child is suc- audience. Storytelling, then, is consis- and happens only as a result of mutual cessfully learning to speak. tent with recent mandates to engage exchanges between the teller and audi- Children must be immersed in and children in whole-brain education. ence where a storytelling mentor (the actively engaged in the medium they teller) demonstrates competent story- are to learn. The expectation that they Literacy Development telling technique. Moreover, the expec- will master the medium must be un- Perhaps the most critical intellectual tation for success by the audience, as equivocal by the learner but most espe- challenge facing school children is to well as by the teller, is great. cially by the mentors (parents and become literate, and, arguably, the But there is more to be said about the teachers). This expectation is realized most important responsibility facing connection between storytelling and only if the communication taking place teachers is to help children develop literacy. Goodman (1970) has sug- is perceived by the learner to be mean- skill in reading and writing. Currently, gested that reading (and, by implica- ingful and is reinforced by mentors literacy education is grounded in lan- tion, writing) is a creative-predictive who demonstrate for the novice what guage acquisition theory and a rather process involving a person's use of his constitutes mature use of the medium interesting set of observations involv- or her background knowledge to make as both mentor and novice engage in ing the success rate of children learning educated guesses as to what is ahead in mutual exchanges with each other. to communicate aurally/orally in a lan- a line of print. Having sufficient knowl- However, the responsibility for master- guage vs. learning to communicate via edge about the world in general, about ing the medium is clearly understood to the printed medium. (For an overview the nature of print and printed lan- be the sole province of the learner. of this theory and these observations, guage, and about the specific type of By comparison, how frequently is it see Cambourne, 1986.) material to be read/written is critical the case in our schools that children are Almost all children learn to speak a when recreating the text during reading engaged in reading/writing activities language with reasonable fluency by or creating it during writing. Not only over which they have no controlac- the time they are five years of age. By does storytelling provide children with tivities they perceive as meaningless contrast, significant numbers of chil- an abundance of relevant background either because the assignments are dic- dren fail to learn to read and write by knowledge, it also provides them with tated to them or are ones in which they the time they are chronologically eligi- practice in the very same creative proc- have no vested interest? How often are ble to graduate from high school. This ess that literate people engage in when reading and writing taught as isolated anomaly has intrigued researchers for Storytelling World, Winter/Spring, 1996, Page 8 BEST COPY AVAIIIABLE 3 reading and writing. (For a fuller expla- nation of this phenomenon see Roney, 1984 & 1989.) And because the storytelling experience is so intimate and personal (much more so than is the case when children listen to someone read stories aloud), its impact on children is that much more significant. In essence, then, employing storytelling in the classroom on a regular basis is a sound teaching/learning strategy, because, as an art form and means of communication, it builds on the children's preschool strengths and oral language expertise to help them successfully develop social, intellectual, and linguistic competences. References Bloom, B., Englehart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W., & Krathwohl, D. (1956). Tax- onomy of Educational Objectives. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay. Cambourne, B. (1986). Rediscover- ing natural literacy learning: Old wine in a new bottle. Paper presented at the E.S.L. Conference, Singapore. Goodman, K. (1970). Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game. In H. Singer & R. Ruddell (Eds.), Theoreti- cal Models & Process. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Roney, R. (1984). Background experience is the foundation of success in learning to read. The Reading Teacher, 38, 196-199. Roney, R. (1989). Back to the basics with storytelling. The Reading Teacher, 42, 520-523. Craig Roney is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Wayne State Uni- versity in Detroit. He specializes in instruction in Children's Literature, Story- telling, and the Language Arts. He regularly teaches both graduate and un- dergraduate courses in these areas as well elemen- as more general coursework in tary and middle school teacher prepara- tion. Craig serves as a member (and past chair) of the Committee on Storytelling of the National Council of Teachers of Eng- lish, and he is an active member of the International Reading Association and the National Storytelling Association. He frequently conducts workshops, school dem- onstrations, lectures, and seminars both regionally and nationally, particularly regarding the use of children's literature and storytelling in the classroom. He also has numerous publications on these top- ics. Storytelling World, Winter/Spring, 1996, Page 9 EST COPY AVAIILABLE 4 .1 es a- I -C7 (0 U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) REPRODUCTION RELEASE (Specific Document) I. 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