Storytelling Coach

Rationale: Why teach students to tell stories?

- Build confidence

-greatest fear is public speaking

-oral language skills are not “tested,” but they are the critical skills for life success

  • getting the job
  • keeping the job

- Build language

-Lexical vocabulary word meanings and relationships

-Narrative vocabulary logical patterns, sequences, and thought structures

- Build community

-risk taking requires a supportive community

-oral language skills are critical for healthy interactions (family/emotional and community/democracy)

What are the pitfalls?

- Lack of confidence

-self-consciousness (everyone is looking at me)

-low self-esteem

- Language deficits

-lexical deficits

-narrative deficits

- Lack of a community mindset

-judgmental mind-set (YOU’RE NO GOOD / and i’m not either)

NON-COMPETITIVE GAMES

-The Mirror Game (Teaches concentration, focus, confidence. Quieting activity)

  • sitting teacher leader
  • sitting student leader
  • standing student and student

-Copycat! (Build language)

  • Teacher stands in front and uses hands face and voice to animate words
  • Remember to use the “football HUH!’ and include voices in a lower register.

-Word Whirlwind (Builds language, confidence, and community)

  • Teacher assigns a word to each student sitting.
  • Teacher assigns a “firecracker” (starter) and the “fancy finish” (finish)
  • The “fancy finish” assigns the teacher the “grand finale.”
  • When the student says the word, the student rises and uses hands, face, and voice before sitting.

-Bats and Bugs / Vampire (BUILDS COMMUNITY)

  • Prepare the space by taping the boundaries.
  • Bat (vampire) is blindfolded
  • The TEACHER randomly selects a friend (mix it up!)
  • Friend cannot touch the bat/vampire but can give verbal directions.
  • Bugs cross wings over their chest and must walk heal to toe. Bugs must keep at least one foot on the ground at all times.
  • When the bat touches a bag, the bag goes to the bat cave (where teacher is standing)
  • Teacher acts as Queen of the Bat Cave (ham it up!). Students come to the cave if they are touched, if their feet come apart, if they touch the tape line, or if they roll or jump. Welcome them enthusiastically!
  • For an extra reward, play the game with lights out!

PRINCIPLES OF THE STORYTELLING COACH

-Strong classroom management

  • Blend high structure with high creativity (half “Peter Pan”; half “drill sergeant”)
  • Make everything a privilege.
  • Use positive, memorable language to tell students what you want (Sit on your seat, cross your feet)
  • Always have a “back-up” plan that removes students who are creating distractions, while denying them attention and “glory.”
  • Tell them: “Watch how the other students are doing it.”

-Pour on the Positive

  • Let the community provide the energy
  • Leave them wanting more. (P.T. Barnum principle!)
  • Choosing game (eenie meanie. Offers random selection, but when you need to, you can cheat!)
  • Give students an outlet after they learn to tell a story. Make them STARS!

-Make risk-taking safe

  • Keep even discipline situations as positive as you can.
  • Look for ways to create cooperative vs. competitive environments.
  • “Not just 1 winner, but ALL winners.”
  • Keep learning incremental (babystep)
  • Script students to be supportive coaches
  • Thumbs up, eyes on the storyteller, turn on the positive!
  • Keep exposure incremental
  • Remember that your direct attention, even encouragement, is potentially overwhelming exposure!
  • How to decrease exposure
  • Avoid looking at the student
  • Have everyone do it together
  • Do it with the student
  • Create a “screen” by making encouraging noise as people practice
  • How to increase exposure
  • Increase eye contact
  • Invite students to do “short chunks” in front of the audience
  • Make sure to set up the audience to act as “coaches.”
  • Select a coach to practice with the student in the hall.

STORYTELLING PRACTIC PROCESS

This offers a good sequence of development, from minimum exposure to increasing exposure.

-Teacher Modeling

  • Set up: Students are sitting, no distractions. Teacher stands in the front of the room
  • Teacher offers the story in small chunks with students repeating each chunk.

-Practice and Repetition

  • Teacher reviews story (fill in the blank)

-Independent Practice

  • Students practice the story independently but all at once
  • Elements
  • Opening: “My story is . . .” (punch to the right, punch to the left, punch to the center)
  • Wind-up: “ONCE upon a time . . .”
  • Tag line: “Now everybody knows that an ox is like a cow.”
  • Ending: “And that was the end of that!”

-Peer Practice

  • Students face each other and practice
  • Practice all together
  • Take turns practicing
  • One student stands; the other student sits
  • Teacher emphasizes the importance of good coaching

Further Development (handout)

-Build a Listening Library

-Develop skills with reader’s theater

-Let students select a story to develop independently

  • Select and print folktales (see websites below)
  • Students read and select a favorite folktale
  • Students read folktale repeatedly (See Reader’s Theatre Handout)
  • Silently
  • “whisper read”
  • read aloud with teacher assistance
  • read aloud standing with storytelling voices
  • Students draw a cartoon that illustrates the sequence of the folktale
  • Students practice with the cartoon
  • Several times in hand
  • Then on the floor (hardly looking)
  • Then behind them (looking if you need it)
  • Students practice without the cartoonusing the Storytelling Practice Process

Two good sites for folktales: