Children as Story-Tellers: Developing Language Skills in the Classroom

Jennings, C. (1991) Children as Story-tellers: Developing Language Skills in the Classroom MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA; Oxford University Press

Retelling of original stories (pp22)

'Children are always eager to retell a story they have just read or heard and often want to work on the one told at the start of the session. They should be encouraged to select favourite stories from books they have read in the past. This can include any stories read to them by parents, teachers and librarians, or those they have experienced in their personal reading.
There are many advantages of allowing children to retell traditional or contemporary stories, including:

• Children initially select old favourites which can be recalled immediately
• The familiarity which children feel with the known structure of previously shared stories enhances their confidence in their choices
• making a retold story their own by creating a personal interpretation based on their experience of the story'

• Can we tell more about the learner by the way they re-tell a story?
• As far as autism is concerned, can we ientify what stage of the spectrum they are at by their ability to retell a known story? (assessment through storytelling, perhaps)
• Can we assess the ability to communicate through the child's re-telling? Do they 'put on' the act of a storyteller, away from their own persona?
• As far as the project is concerned, should a story be selected for the child to retell, or should it remain open? Should they retell a story personal to them, from their own life?

Personal Experience Stories (pp18)
'Children have an instinctive feel for story, blending instances and episodes from their own experiences into oral narratives, therefore these personal anecdotes are natural items in a story-telling session. Exchanging personal experiences with peers is authentic because childeren identify with the similarity of events in other children's lives.

• Should the project be done with more than one child at a time?
• Should the opportunity to 'feed' off each other's stories be given?
• Should the story being told be collaborative?
• Will there be as much similarity of experience with children with autism, or is it more personal / centered?
• Will there still be a clear oral culture of speaker / listener if it is done with a group?

Authorship

Pearson, N. in Hall, N. (ed)(1989) Writing with Reason: The Emergence of Authorship in Young Children LONDON; Hodder and Staughton

Setting a context

Sharing Ideas
- What is your favourite story?
- why is it YOURS?
- picking up individual details

What are they key features? (fairy tales)
- Good guy / bad guy
- scary parts?

Adapting
- creating our own stories from existing features
- changing the path of the story
- using pre-scripted rules

'The Art of Storytelling for Teachers and Pupils'

Grugeon, E. & Gardner, P. (2000) The Art of Storytelling for Teachers and Pupils: Using Stories to Develop Literacy in Primary Classrooms LONDON; Fulton

One good chapter on Oral Storytelling
- Good pointers about TELLING a story, differences to writing, or reading one from a book
- Developing a repertoire, creating a system for telling stories from what you have previously read
- Developing specific styles, language use, pacing etc. for specific stories
- 'Oral culture'. Using stories, told on TV, radio, parents etc. to for a code for storytelling. 'The right way to do it'.

'The Boy Who Would Be A Helicopter'

Gussin Paley, V. (1990) The Boy Who Would Be A Helicopter: The Uses of Storytelling in the Classroom LONDON; Harvard University Press

Excellent in-depth look at a storytelling project in a KS1 classroom.

Detailed accounts of each child and their relationship with storytelling
Good details on teacher and assistant persepctives
Specific strategy on storytelling
Language use - specifically documented
Good for translation of meaning - 'what do they mean when they say this'

Social Stories (Specifically for Autism)

Although are mainly written, alternative social stories can be recorded on video, spoken aloud, or used as 'scripts' to re-enact events or stories.

PURPOSE

1. Social avoidance -- Kids who would fall into the category of socially avoidant might be those who tantrum, shy away from, or attempt to escape from social situations. Often, kids that are this avoidant of social situations are doing so because they have some hypersensitivity to certain sensory stimuli. Consequently, those sensory needs must be addressed prior to attempts at teaching social skills. A kid who is constantly overwhelmed by his environment is likely not going to be successful in many interventions. Social stories may well prove to be useful tools with such children, but only after the sensory needs of those children have been met (through sensory integration, vision therapy, auditory integration, etc.).
2. Social indifference -- Social indifference is the social impairment common to the majority of children with autism. Children who are socially indifferent are those who do not actively seek social interaction, but at the same time, do not aggressively avoid such interaction. Social Stories are often quite effective with socially avoidant kids: they can simplify and illustrate social interactions, with the hope that increased understanding of those situations will make them more attractive and reinforcing for the child.
3. Social awkwardness -- Socially awkward children are typically higher functioning kids who may try very hard to gain and keep friends, but are hindered by a lack of reciprocity in conversation and interest -- they focus on their favorite topic or topics to the exclusion of most everything else -- and an inability to learn social skills and taboos by observing others. Social stories are often very effective with these individuals as they teach explicitly those skills and taboos that these children do not just pick up from their environment. Social stories provide them with a framework for successful social interaction: perspective on the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs of others in their environment, and suggestions of appropriate behaviors.

PRESENTATION

• Illustrations -- The child (or parent/teacher) can illustrate each page of the story, or photographs can be taken of the child and his peers in the social situation. These pictures can add interest and visual support for the presented ideas. Be wary, though, of images that are too complex. Children with autism do not always focus on pictures as we would expect (they sometimes fail to focus on a prominent object in the foreground in favor of some other item in the background), so the pictures (photographs, especially) should be as visual uncluttered as possible.
• Symbols -- The text of the story can be augmented with pictures representing various words or ideas. The Mayer-Johnson Picture Exchange symbols (often generated through their Boardmaker computer program) are typically good choices for this use. For beginning readers, PECS symbols or simple blackline drawings can be substitutes for written words not yet mastered. Or a single, large symbol can represent a complete idea on a particular page.
• Social Stories on tape -- A reading of a particular story can be recorded on audio tape with a tone or verbal cue for the child to turn the page.
• Video -- A film could be made of the student and peers acting out applicable scenes from the story. The text of the story should be edited in before the applicable scene, and the written story presented along with the video when it is presented to the child, however, with the hope of eventually fading the video for the written text (as the text is much less labor intensive to create and use than a video).
• Story boxes -- The child and an adult can act out scenes from the stories with small figures, rooms made of shoeboxes, etc. This too, can add interest and increase understanding of the concepts for children who are not strong readers.

(polyxo.com - A resource for teaching children with Autism)

Literacy and Learning Through Talk

Corden, R. (2000) Literacy and Learning Through Talk: Strategies for the Primary Classroom BUCKINGHAM; Open University Press

Good chapter on 'exploratory talk'

Ideal chapter on 'storytelling'
'Through voice and eye gesture the listener is drawn into a story, woven into the tale as a participant, to feel anger, fear, despair and joy. Storytelling is interactive: it moves the listener back and forth from spectator to participant. The storyteller achieves this through inflection, emphasis, cadence, pace, pause and register.'

Could be most relevant in an autistic context?
- Eye contact
- Participation

Stories for Thinking: Using Stories to Develop Thinking & Literacy

Fisher, R. (2004) 'Stories for Thinking: Using Stories to Develop Thinking and Literacy' in Fisher, R. (2004) Teaching Thinking LONDON; Continuum

Following the opinion that a literate person makes a more 'able child' in comparison to 'less successful learners'. Using stories to create a backbone for social practice, learning rules and life skills from telling stories and looking at their structure.

I think these are relevant to creating a context in which to tell stories, as well as covering the ways in which stories are a base for different types of questioning.

Relates to SEN in the 'community of enquiry' aspect, creating a classroom environment where children can explore a text read to them, or come up with their own oral stories based on previously established community 'boundaries' set up by enquiry and questions.

'by interrogating a text in a community of enquiry children learn that a story usually contains many more questions or problems than they first thought, and that questions (and answers) beget further questions in a dynamic and potentially endless process of enquiry.'

Teachers TV - Storytelling in RE

Look at later - has some information on different ways stories can be told.
Inportance of telling not just reading stories.

Storytelling Workshop