Storytelling Part 2: Early Lessons/Background
Storytelling is an old art form. It is part of every culture and is used to pass on lessons, history, social expectations etc. I grew up around storytelling. My dad was librarian and storyteller, which meant, all of us kids sat around the kitchen table learning and exploring the power of storytelling.
There are so many ways to tell stories: images, picture books, novels, readers theatre, oral storytelling etc. Each mode of storytelling has advantages and each takes time to learn how to do. For this unit, I focussed on oral storytelling, but we also explored picture books and readers’ theatre. I wanted my students to start to see the similarities and the differences between the mediums.
I chose oral storytelling because it is outside the comfort zone of most of my kids. I have taught a similar unit to grade four and grade seven classes, but not grade five. It has also been a few years since I taught an oral storytelling unit, and I thought it would bring some joy—especially because I roped my librarian into joining me.
Lesson 1: Introduction to Oral Storytelling
To start to understand oral storytelling, kids have to see stories being told. We modelled storytelling throughout the entire unit and we also showed the kids videos of different storytellers. We talked about how there are different styles of storytelling.
Before we even showed the kids a video, we asked them to share storytelling they had heard before. Some talked about guest storytellers who had come to the school pre-pandemic from the Katzie First Nations and shared stories that were allowed. This led to a lovely side discussion about stories and the who has the right to tell stories. We let the kids know that we would be focusing on fables and folktales.
During the first lesson, the students watched the same story told by two different people. This was to demonstrate how different people will tell stories differently. As they were watching, the kids had a T-Chart to start collecting ideas about what they noticed and wondered. We also had the students complete an Oral Reading Inventory and this was kept until the end of the unit, when a similar inventory was taken to explore growth.
The story we chose was The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. We chose it because the kids were familiar with the story. They listened to a video of the author telling the story and then I told the story. It is one of my favourite to tell.
Lesson 2: Comparing Picture Books to Oral Storytelling
For this unit, we really wanted kids thinking about different ways of telling stories. A familiar type of storytelling is through picture books. The students had actually learned how to read picture books effectively before winter break and had read books to several kindergarten buddies. They learned during that mini-unit about types of questions teachers use to engage a reader, how to hold books, and how to read books fluently.
For the comparison lesson, we read a picture book to the class. I have large whiteboard Venn diagrams, and the kids then used their previous knowledge to compare reading picture books to oral storytelling. As the kids were working in groups of 2-3 at tables, we drew a GIANT Venn diagram on the board and invited students to add their ideas. The goal was to fill up the board with as many ideas a possible. This happened as the individual brainstorms were happening.
Because we filled in the diagram on the board while the kids were working, it meant that we could dive into discussion without having take individual ideas. This is something I do for group discussions to generate starting points and fill the board with ideas easily. For the whole class discussion, my teaching partner and I pulled out a few key differences to talk about:
Oral storytelling is older and is found throughout history
The flow is important (harder to jump back in if distracted by movement etc.)
Not always the same (each time you tell a story, the words might be slightly different)
You need to add details to help your audience see pictures in their mind.
We could have talked about any of the ideas, but decided to highlight these four. At this point in the unit, we were still helping the kids start to understand the complexity of oral storytelling. The ticket out the door for this lesson was writing on a sticky note what they thought was the most important difference between the two storytelling forms.
I took a photo of the board and made a class copy of the Venn diagram. This was used in the compare and contrast lesson. I also posted a copy on the wall for all students to see.
Lesson 3/4: Comparing Readers’ Theatre to Oral Storytelling
Readers’ Theatre was another type of storytelling we wanted the kids to experience. I pulled out five different stories including….The Paper Bag Princess…and the kids had the first day to practice. The second day they presented. One the second day, the students also worked on a Venn diagram comparing Readers’ Theatre to oral storytelling.
Why did I include The Paper Bag Princess again? I wanted the students to experience the same story told multiple ways. To see how format changes the meaning of characters and stories. I also just really love the story.
The ticket out the door involved the kids telling me which difference they thought was the most important. You can see their votes in the tally marks. Again, I took a photo of this group brainstorm and made a copy that the kids used in the compare and contrast lesson.
Lesson 5: Practicing Compare and Contrast Paragraphs
I love the Reading Power/Writing Power work of Adrienne Gear. I was using Nonfiction Reading Power to explore the language or comparison with my class. We used the Venn diagrams we created to practice on GIANT sheets of paper with felts. The kids worked in pairs and really focussed on using the language or comparison they had been learning. I gave each group both comparison Venn diagrams and they had choice in which topic they wrote about.
They wrote their rough drafts directly on their tables with whiteboard markers. They used this space to identify the language of comparison and solidify their ideas. The pairs then transferred their paragraphs to big sheets of paper. It was another way to think about different ways of storytelling. It was also fun.
Next Steps
These lessons were foundational in helping my kids explicitely tease out the differences between storytelling formats. The kids really enjoyed trying out different ways to tell stories and it set them up for success in oral storytelling. We started more of the oral storytelling lessons at about the same time as the Readers’ Theatre, so the lessons in the next blog post slightly overlapped with a few of these.
The next blog post details how we taught the kids to break down folktales and fables in order to modernize them and learn how to become storytellers.