Why Storytelling? (According to Wright, 1995)

• plays a vital role in educating children
• contributes to students' academic success and emotional well being
• well-suited for student exploration
• accessible to all ages and abilities
• no special equipment is needed
• encourages students to explore their expressiveness
• helps students communicate thoughts and feelings more easily
• reminds children that their spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art

What Is Storytelling?

• relating a tale to one or more listeners through voice and gesture
• not the same as reading a story aloud or reciting from memory
• storyteller creates a series of mental images
• each listener, as well as each teller, composes unique images

How Do You Include Storytelling in School?

• To recall sensory detail, listeners can be instructed to note how people use gesture and facial expression, body expression, and variety in tone of voice to get the story across.
• Stories can be rehearsed, but it is important to remember that storytelling is communication, from the teller to the audience, not just acting or performing.

Effective Storytelling Performance Skills

When telling a story, an effective storyteller demonstrates the following traits observable by others:

• speaks with an appropriate volume for the audience to hear
• expressively uses non-verbal communication to clarify the meaning of the text
• makes eye contact with audience
• storyteller's natural voice is differentiated from character voices
• maintains clear spatial relationships for characters and narrator
• the story is presented efficiently and keeps listeners' interest throughout

Effective Storytelling Composition

• story's sequence of events is easy for the listener to follow
• story's ending has a sense of closure
• choice of language is descriptive and articulate
• employs a unique or creative use of language, sound, or body language

One Story that Can Be Used for Storytelling (according to Rose Owens)

The Frog and the Ox

        An ox came down to the pond to drink. As he walked into the water he smashed a young frog into the mud. When the frogs returned home, the old mother frog soon missed the little frog. She wanted to know where the little frog was.
        "Oh mother," said the little frogs, "a big monster stepped on little brother with one of his big feet."
        "How big?¡±said the mother frog. "Was he as big as this?" And she puffed herself up.
        "Oh, much bigger!" they cried.
        The frog puffed up even bigger.
        "No, he was bigger than that!" they cried.
        "He couldn't possibly have been bigger than this," she said.
        And she kept puffing herself up bigger and bigger and bigger until, all at once, she burst.

Lesson < Don't attempt the impossible >
 

Activities

Activity #1: Using the Objects in the Box

• Take an empty box
• Have each student contribute something small (to put in the box)
• Have the students tell a story using some of the objects from the box

Activity #2: Story Relay

• One student begins a story
• Another student can pick up the story where the previous student left off
• That student is followed by another student until the end of the story

Activity #3: Information Gaps

• Put the class into four groups (A, B, C, and D)
• Give one of the four pictures to each group
• Tell the groups to memorize everything about the picture
• Collect back the pictures
• Ask for one student from each group to form a new four-person group
• The task is for the students to work out what the story is

Activity #4: Use the Vocabulary

• Pick out a story which is well-known to the students
• Give them a list of words
• Have them tell the story using the words

Activity #5: Creative Story Telling

• Cut out pictures
• Laminate the pictures and glue a piece of felt on the back
• This should be enough felt to hold the picture to a flannel board
• Bring an assortment of these pictures to circle time
• Use them to create a story

References

Stories of the Dreaming. [Web site]. Retrieved November 6, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.dreamtime.net.au/main.cfm

Forest, H. (2000). Storytelling in the classroom: Concepts and activities. Retrieved November 6, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://storyarts.org/articles/storytelling.html

Graves, D. H. (1994). A fresh look at writing. Toronto: Irwin Publishing.

Harmer, J. (1998). How to teach English: An introduction to the practice of English language teaching. Oxford: Addison Wesley Longman Limited.

Kelly Bannister and a Story Telling Psychology. [Web site]. Retrieved November 7, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.oikos.org/mairstory.htm

The Kids' Storytelling Club. [Web site]. Retrieved November 5, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.storycraft.com

Barry McWilliams Home Page. [Web site]. Retrieved November 5, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.seanet.com/~eldrbarry

Story Arts Online! [Web site]. Retrieved November 6, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://storyarts.org/

Teaching Ideas: Teaching Storytellin. [Web site]. (1998, November 11). NCTE Committee on Storytelling. Retrieved November 6, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ncte.org/teach/Storytelling7773.html

Welcome to Telling Tales: The Wonderful World of Stories! [Web site]. Retrieved November 5, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.literacyessentials.com

Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 

This page last updated: December 10, 2000