Storytelling Web Sites:

• Storytelling Arts of Indiana -- this website provides a variety of resources for teaching storytelling, including bibliographies and suggested activities.



• Story Arts Online lists a number of reasons to incorporate storytelling into the classroom, and has a variety of suggested activities.



• The National Council of Teachers of English position on the power of storytelling in the classroom.



• Games for Teaching Storytelling has a few storytelling games and a list of links to other storytelling sites.



• Tips on Teaching Storytelling -- ten tips from Waller Hastings



• Stories Alive, Judith Black's storytelling website, has a nice section on Stories in Education, including a Curriculum Guide.



• ProTeacher storytelling lesson plans has links to several useful storytelling sites, including many of the ones listed here and some sites on assessing student storytelling.



• Urban Legends archive -- has a lot of stories categorized by type, but not a lot of detail about origins.



• Urban Legends and Folklore from about.com has lots of stories, including more thorough background, currently circulating hoaxes, and Top 25 urban legends.

Storytelling Books:

• Brunvand, Jan H. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
  
  The origin and development of a number of famous urban legends. This book doesn't contain any storytelling activities per se, but reading a chapter or two gives you a good sense of how to track down urban legends, a fun storytelling activity for high school and college students.



• Cooper, Pamela J. and Rives Collins. Look What Happened to Frog: Storytelling in Education . Scottsdale, AZ: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1992.
  
  The authors' experience with storytelling by teachers and students, including why to tell, how to choose a story, developing your story, and activities to try in the classroom.



• Cooper, Patsy. When Stories Come to School: Telling, Writing, and Performing Stories in the Early Childhood Classroom . New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 1993.
  
  A description of one person's experiences with storytelling. Includes some activities, but mostly good for a sense of how storytelling is valuable for young children in school settings.



• Goforth, Frances S. and Carolyn V. Spillman. Using Folk Literature in the Classroom: Encouraging Children to Read and Write . Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1994.
  
  An introduction to folk literature and its benefits in the classroom, followed by a rich set of activities geared towards specific tales.



• Mason, Harriet. The Power of Storytelling: A Step-By-Step Guide to Dramatic Learning in K-12 . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 1996.
  
  A wonderful collection of storytelling activities, complete with suggested age groups and level of difficulty. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in teaching storytelling in a formal or informal group setting.



• Meyer, Richard J. Stories from the Heart: Teachers and Students Researching Their Literacy Lives . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996.
  
  This book focuses on developing written stories, but has good examples of children's storytelling development over time.



• Norton, Donna E. and Saundra Norton. Language Arts Activities for Children . 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan College Publishing Company, 1994.
  
  A large set of language arts activities, including some related to storytelling (but be prepared to dig!)



• Trousdale, Ann M., Sue A. Woestehoff, andd Marni Schwartz, eds. Give a Listen: Stories of Storytelling in School . Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.
  
  Personal stories of teachers, librarians, and storytellers working in a variety of classroom settings from preschool to university. Good for finding some lesson ideas and getting a sense of how people have used storytelling successfully in the past.



• Walker, Brenda. We Made a Story: Projects, Playmaking and Remedial Activities . Chicago: The Coach House Press Inc., 1975.
  
  Description of group storymaking process with loads of examples of actual stories created in different classrooms.

Top Ten Reasons to Teach Storytelling

Sure, storytelling is fun, but there are lots of other good reasons to include it in the curriculum at all levels. I developed the following list from the sources listed above.

1. Telling stories encourages reading by giving students a chance to connect to stories in a meaningful way. (Goforth & Spillman)



2. Storytelling improves writing by giving students skills to use in the prewriting phase. Students who invent details about an event through telling it orally find those details easier to capture in writing. ( The National Council of Teachers of English)



3. Storytelling develops verbal skills, which can contribute to a student's ability to resolve interpersonal conflict through negotiation, discussion, and tact. ( Story Arts Online)



4. Storytelling expands the imagination by allowing children to mentally explore new places, objects, and ideas. (Goforth & Spillman)



5. Stories helps children master recall, sequencing, and grouping, prerequisites to concrete operational thinking. ( Judith Black)



6. Stories broaden a child's vocabulary. (Cooper & Collins)



7. Sharing stories builds community in the classroom among students and between students and teachers. Knowing someone’s story makes it much harder to judge or misunderstand them. ( Storytelling Arts of Indiana)



8. Hearing and telling stories helps students learn the patterns and rhythm of language. (Cooper & Collins)



9. Storytelling gives children who are not print literate -- young children, non-native speakers, and those with learning disabilities or other delays -- the ability to succeed in a creative language activity. (Walker)



10. Hearing and telling stories is a wonderful vehicle for passing on information about history, science, government, other cultures, and many other traditional school subjects. ( The National Council of Teachers of English)

Activities for Teaching Storytelling

I posted 20 or so of my favorite activities for teaching storytelling, along with their sources, on the Teachers' Electronic Sharehouse, a website I developed for another class. Although I invited lots of people to add their own activities, I don't think I got any takers. My first demo to other storytellers will be in my project presentation.

I used the TeachES site to develop the plan for a storytelling workshop I conducted at the Urbana Free Library on Saturday, April 6 along with Kate McDowell, one of the children's librarians. Four children and one of my storytelling classmates attended. We deviated from the plan a little bit, mostly for the better.

We got started a little late because two of the participants, who were sisters, had not arrived yet. While they waited, the two other participants, a girl and a boy both around 11, browsed through the fairy tale and story books we had on display. When everyone arrived, we did introductions and then started off with "Horseshoe". The youngest girl was very shy, but the rest seemed to enjoy the activity. It was hard to stand for 10 seconds of applause; even the adults were uncomfortable! I had to work really hard not to take time off of the clock when people looked awkward.

Next I told a variant of "Bark, George!" Basically, a dog takes her puppy to the vet because he is meowing instead of barking. When the vet reaches in and pulls out a cat, the puppy quacks. The vet pulls out a duck, a pig, and a cow (I think) before the puppy barks. Then the ecstatic mother kisses the vet and all the animals, and tries to kiss the vet again, but he's gone and the puppy is now saying "Help!" The kids all really enjoyed the telling. After that, we went around the circle and retold. I think I was unclear in giving instructions because the first girl kept going and going, until I finally jumped in and told the next person to go. That happened with the next few tellers also. They did a good job at changing the story though; the puppy started out meowing, but then the vet came up with a horse and an elephant (!) before the puppy barked. The youngest girl was still very shy; she said only one word for her part.

Because we had just done a variant, I did the story variations next instead of the improv. The older girl had a very classic version, so she went first, and then the rest of us told how our versions differed from hers. We had a Cinderella Skeleton, a bigfoot, and a cowgirl, but the basic story didn't change much, and the kids clearly saw this. Doing this activity was a bad call. It took way too long for the kids to read the stories -- especially the younger ones -- and then they didn't have a whole lot to say about them. Since they'd already gotten the idea of variations during the retelling, I probably should have skipped this activity.

Next we did Improv 1-2-3. At this point I was rushing, so it didn't go as well as it could have. I need to slow down when I give instructions and give examples so the kids understand what's expected. As it was, we did two groups of three, each with a beginning, middle, and an end. The stories came out well, although the participants did not always quite follow their parts as intended. It may just have been too hard an activity for this age group; it was recommended for much older students.

We had to rush a little bit through the personal storytelling. We broke up into three groups of two. The sisters worked together, and the older two kids each had an adult partner. I roamed a little bit to see how the groups were doing, but mainly stayed with the sisters to help them with their stories. They were both telling family stories. The older one was telling an expanded version of the story she started in the Horseshoe activity, which I was really excited about. The younger one was telling a fairly typical small kid narrative -- very rambly and not much action -- so I helped her pick out a beginning, middle, and end, and make sure there was some conflict. After each partner got a chance to tell and get feedback, we circled up again to share stories. By then the parents were starting to trickle in. I let the kids choose whether or not they wanted to tell. I was pleasantly surprised when the youngest girl chose to stand up and tell her personal narrative. It was a nice long telling compared to her one-sentence responses earlier, and although she didn't make much eye contact, she had certainly improved a lot. Her sister and the older boy also told, but the oldest girl chose not to tell. I'm afraid she was preteen shy when her dad walked in, and was probably more sensitive than the other kids to the fact that we were over time. I'm sure she got good feedback from Kate, who was her partner, but I'm sorry that bad time management held her up from telling to the group.

We wrapped up with a quick statement about the uses of storytelling and the books available around the room for checking out. I think I was still rushing through what I had to say, but fortunately Kate provided a less hectic sanity check. Overall, the session went really well. We discussed the possibility of developing it as a long-term activity, like Write On!, that kids could attend once a month and build their repertoire over time. I think that would work really well. One hour is a good start, but clearly not enough time to work out a polished story. I need to work on time management, slowing down, and explaining the activities clearly, but for a first try I was really pleased with the workshop.