This slideshow explores the solution of engaging emotional intelligence through story sharing in order to address two of the mutual challenges of both educators and librarians – educational motivation and information assimilation. It was presented at the OCTELA (www.octela.org) spring conference on March 27, 2010.
3. The New Literacies: Challenges and Solutions for the 21st Century Science Through Stories Hayley McEwing, Children’s Librarian http://hayleymcewing.pbworks.com/
6. Why Share Stories? Engage Emotional Intelligence “ . . . attuning to our feelings, according to neurological research, helps us find the meaning in data …, Emotions science now tells us, are part of rationality , not opposed to it (42).”
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14. Storytelling Story Reading WHO Storyteller + audience Story reader + book + audience WHAT Creation and improvisation of story Book contains the story WHEN Naturally Certain times of the day WHERE Anywhere Anywhere that has a book WHY Relationship between storyteller and audience. Encourages personal stories and appreciation for oral history. Strongest bond usually occurs between story reader and just one or two listeners. Encourages independent reading and appreciation for literature. HOW Innumerable techniques Limited techniques
22. Storytelling Story Reading WHO Storyteller + audience Story reader + book + audience WHAT Creation and improvisation of story Book contains the story WHEN Naturally Certain times of the day WHERE Anywhere Anywhere that has a book WHY Relationship between storyteller and audience. Encourages personal stories and appreciation for oral history. Strongest bond usually occurs between story reader and just one or two listeners. Encourages independent reading and appreciation for literature. HOW Innumerable techniques Limited techniques
28. Science Through Stories Any Questions? Hayley McEwing, Children’s Librarian http://hayleymcewing.pbworks.com/
Notas do Editor
Good Morning to You Good Morning to You Good Morning OCTELA Good Morning to You!
How many of you like mosquitoes? Why? How many of you dislike mosquitoes? Why? Until I read, Mosquito Bite by Anne Pellowski, I thought that all mosquitoes bit humans. In all actuality, there are 2,700 mosquito species, or kinds of mosquitoes, and most of these drink flower nectar and plant juices. Of those mosquitoes that drink blood, only the females do, and in that small amount, only a few species drink human blood. Well, just like many of you, old woman dislikes those few human-blood drinking female mosquitoes …
As you may have guessed by now, the following presentation focuses on the solution of story sharing in order to address the challenge of educational motivation and information assimilation.
In some cases, the natural emotionality behind stories is the only means of engaging an individual in information. The titles on display are examples of picturebooks … story books … that incorporate nonfiction information … either throughout the story or at the very end. Examples (not in my picturebook correlations): Aliki. My Visit to the Zoo. Barner, Bob. Dem Bones Sayre, April Pulley. Trout, Trout, Trout! (A Fish Chant) Schaefer, Lola. M. An Island Grows. Schlein, Miriam. Hello, Hello! Swinburne, Stephen R. Ocean Soup: Tide-Pool Poems.
Stories incorporate information and motivate through the emotions. Here are a couple of resources that detail the importance of emotional intelligence, and here are two other resources that infuse story sharing into school curriculum.
How we feel about the way information is shared as just as important as the meaning. “ Diagramming the parts of a flower is boring!”
Lily was bored, too. That’s why she went to bed early – she was too bored. But during the night there was a storm! …
Stories allow us to get involved. We can find ourselves in stories. We can compare ourselves and our beliefs to a character. We can imagine ourselves in different situations and be motivated to change, to learn more. We can find our own, unique story sharing style. As I am encouraging you all to become story sharers, I hope you’ll encourage the individuals you work with as well.
Stories not only connect and engage individuals to information and themselves, but they also help us to connect with other people. Raise your hand if you’ve ever gotten lost in a foreign place – by foreign I mean any place you hadn’t explored before. In three sentences, tell me what happened to you. Today you’ve all come together as an audience to hear the same stories. You all have this experience in common but will have different stories to tell … different reactions to share with those back home.
When we anchor information to feelings and attitudes and engage our emotional intelligence, we can remember and understand that subject better.
Here is a story that engages individuals, fosters community bonding, and transfers scientific information. The pieces are taken from Kizclub.com. This picturebook is also one of many that I’ve correlated to the Ohio Department of Education’s Science Early Learning – Primary Content standards. Grade: Preschool Standard: Scientific Inquiry Benchmark A. Ask a testable question. Indicator 1 and 2 • Ask questions about objects, organisms and events in their environment during shared stories, conversations and play (e.g., ask about how worms eat). (1) • Show interest in investigating unfamiliar objects, organisms and phenomena during shared stories, conversations and play (e.g., “Where does hail come from?”). (2)
Not only do stories engage emotional intelligence and thus increase memory and understanding, stories stimulate all kinds of learners and all kinds of learning. We’ve already detailed the intrapersonal and interpersonal learning that occurs with story sharing. Verbal-linguistic learners are stimulated by the language when they hear, read, write, and tell their own stories. Musical learners become especially involved in stories that incorporate the technique of music, but they can also appreciate the various aspects of sound (which we’ll detail later). There are also specific kinds of stories that attract the logical-mathematical learners. These include cut and tell, folding, and tangram stories, and riddle stories like those in Shannon’s Stories to Solve . Or stories that involve magic tricks. Visual learners are stimulated by a story sharer’s gestures and facial expressions as well as props. Kinesthetic learners are involved in audience participation pieces, movement stories, and of course, the performance of their own stories.
Now I’ll share a tangram story from Marsh’s Story Puzzles, and you’ll see how this form can attract logical-mathematical or spatial learners.
We’ve defined stories and talked about why sharing them is important to learning. Now we need to cover how to share stories. There are two basic means of story sharing: Storytelling and Story Reading. In pure story reading, there is the reader, book, and audience. The story is limited by the book’s text and sharing is strongest with fewer listeners. In pure story telling, there is just the teller and the audience. This allows the teller to improvise, present in innumerable ways, and reach a larger audience.
Here is an example of story reading.
What I am referring to as story sharing is a mix between storytelling and story reading. In story sharing, there are elements of oral telling and large audience engagement, but there is also a place to use objects such as props or images.
Here is an example of story sharing using a digital technique. < story > When Chameleon, Chameleon by Bishop is paired with A Color of His Own by Lionni, we address the preschool, life sciences standard, benchmark A, indicator 2 which is A. Discover that there are living things, non-living things and pretend things, and describe the basic needs of living things (organisms). • Begin to differentiate between real and pretend through stories, illustrations, play and other media (e.g., talking flowers or animals). (2) We investigate when and how chameleons change colors.
These are certain kinds of stories that are particularly good for story sharing. You’ve already seen: Cut and Tell / Folding Stories + Draw and Tell / Chalk Talk / Sand Stories Castillo, Joe: http://www.sandstory.com/ String Tangram Don’t underestimate the power of personal stories to motivate and engage audiences in certain subjects. Personal Stories – These stories are based on a past or present event in your everyday life Use Davis, Donald. Telling Your Own Stories: For Family and Classroom Storytelling, Public Speaking, and Personal Journaling. To uncover stories and share them in all aspects of your life. Poetry – As language arts specialists, many of you are already using this form to transfer information, but just a reminder … poetry is the perfect kind of story to incorporate movement. Bauer, Caroline Feller. New Handbook for Storytellers: With Stories, Poems, Magic, and More.
In the tide pool where I dwell (crouch) Five arms (wiggle five fingers) grasp a mussel shell (grasp fist of other hand) A crab comes – SNIP! – (cut off finger) there goes my arm (show four fingers) Rude, yes, (nod) but I’m not alarmed (shake head no) There won’t be need to operate (show 4 fingers) Since starfish arms regenerate (show 5 fingers) _________________________ Note: Fact box on each page, Glossary and Resources
Above all, pick a story you like! Going back to that idea of emotional intelligence … If you like the story, you’re more likely to be able to learn and remember it. As you find stories you like, keep them in a special place so you always have a story to learn.
So now we’ve found a kind of story we feel emotionally connected to, we need to think about how we will present it. Audience Participation is the most common technique to infuse into a story. It is any method used to engage an audience – do actions, say repeating phrases, add to or guess part of the story Tandem Telling / Readers Theatre – tandem stories are for two people/voices while readers theatre can involve more people Fleischman, Paul. Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. Hoberman, Mary Ann. You Read to Me, I'll Read to You series. Digital – using any form of technology (computer, camera, interactive white board etc.) to help relay a story Bloom’s Taxonomy incorporating technology: http://www.techlearning.com/article/8670 Ohler, Jason. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom. Ohler, Jason: http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/index.cfm Promethean Plant: The World’s Largest Interactive White Board Community: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/ Magnet or Felt “Story Board” - using attachable pictures and a story board KizClub: http://kizclub.com/ “Stories and Props” Movement - sometimes an entire story can be based on audience movement Dow, Connie Bergstein. Dance, Turn, Hop, Learn! Enriching Movement Activities for Preschoolers. Landalf, Helen and Pamela Gerke. Movement Stories for Young Children Ages 3-6. Music – a refrain can be sung throughout the story, instrumental background music can be used to set a mood, or instruments can be used for sound effects or refrains Painter, William M. Storytelling with Music, Puppets, and Arts for Libraries and Classrooms. Show Gobble It Up! A Fun Song about Eating Life A:1 Preschool A. Discover that there are living things, non-living things and pretend things, and describe the basic needs of living things (organisms). • Identify common needs (e.g., food, air, water) of familiar living things. (1) Puppets / Props – use puppets or stuffed animals (or other objects) to introduce, narrate, or animate a story or interact with the audience Frey, Yvonne Amar. One-Person Puppetry Streamlined and Simplified: With 38 Folktale Scripts. www.folkmanis.com
Earlier we compared storytelling and story reading. As we learn how to hone our story sharing skills, lets examine the tradition of pure, oral storytelling in more detail.
Here are the five languages of oral storytelling as outlined by Davis, Donald. Telling Your Own Stories: For Family and Classroom Storytelling, Public Speaking, and Personal Journaling. I’ve further described them with support from: Birch, Carol L. The Whole Story Handbook. Sawyer, Ruth. The Way of the Storyteller. MacDonald, Margaret Read. The Storyteller’s Start-Up Book: Finding, Learning, Performing, and Using Folktales Including Twelve Tellable Tales. Gesture = includes facial expressions and controlling physical space Sound = By experimenting with _____ we create music with words that gives the words and overall story more meaning and life. When I was five years old, my teacher wanted every student to memorize some information about a dinosaur. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t! How could I memorize words written on a paper! I didn’t even know what they said! After time and time again, hearing my mom and sister repeat the poem with different inflection, I got it. I could see the picture in my mind: Ankylosaurus was a peaceful plant-eater. When an enemy tried to threaten him! He would use his giant tail like a club. Attitude = begins with your comfort level with the story which is, of course, effected by practice and choosing a story you’re emotional attached to. Then you can begin to let the overall feeling behind the story come through and create different attitudes for different characters. Feedback = is awareness of your audience. We involve our emotional intelligence to improvise because all audiences are different: “Storytelling is an audience-shaped art form.” Words = purposefully choose and memorize the words that are key to the story. For example, choose strong beginning and ending sentences.
Not only does story sharing engage all kinds of learners through the multiple intelligences, one can also learn a story through one’s specific learning style. Here a few fast tips you can explore later. Haven, Kendall and MaryGay Ducey. Crash Course in Storytelling. MacDonald, Margaret Read. The Storyteller’s Start-Up Book: Finding, Learning, Performing, and Using Folktales Including Twelve Tellable Tales. Sheppard, Tim. Compiled “Tips for Learning Stories.” http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/articles/learning.html (2009)
This resource is made for youth but is also useful to any beginning storyteller. Part Two helps one determine what kind of story learner one is and provides the appropriate story learning techniques.
Lastly, to make you feel more confident sharing stories, here are a few tips that will help you when make a performance mistake. They are taken from Haven, Kendall and MaryGay Ducey. Crash Course in Storytelling.
Above all, modern teaching resources stress that everyday inquiry and self-exploration will engage scientific learning. As we’ve seen today, stories can help bring science into the everyday and provide opportunities for individuals to respond emotionally and get further involved in content. I have correlated picturebooks (cataloged “story”/fiction books) to the Science Early Learning – Primary Content Standards. This is available on my wiki: http://hayleymcewing.pbworks.com/ You will also find this PowerPoint and other bibliographies of pertinent resources on my professional wiki. < show wiki > I also want to bring your attention to the Institute for Library and Information Literacy Education website: http://www.ilile.org/instructionalRes/schoolLibTools/index.html They have correlated books, mostly nonfiction, to the Ohio Department of Education’s standards for grades K-5.