Transformations: Stories to Tell in the Classroom - Softcover

Mcdermott, Phil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782798242 ISBN 13: 9781782798248

Verlag: Liberalis, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

These six stories are the perfect companions to the topics, SEAL work and Literacy Units for teachers and children in the primary classroom. They are to be read aloud but can be enjoyed in solitude. These include myths and legends, based around the subject of transformations dealing with issues and dilemmas to stimulate speaking, listening, responding and writing. The stories are accompanied by a commentary and exercises for use as teaching tools.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

For over 20 years, Phil McDermott has been working as a storyteller, playwright and drama teacher in UK schools and around the world. His highly successful Oracy to Writing Process has already benefited thousands of children at all abilities across the UK and abroad.

For over 20 years, Phil McDermott has been working as a storyteller, playwright and drama teacher in UK schools and around the world. His highly successful Oracy to Writing Process has already benefited thousands of children at all abilities across the UK and abroad.

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Transformations

Stroies to Tell in the Classroom

By Phil McDermott

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2014 Phil McDermott
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78279-824-8

Contents

Introduction, 
The Power of Stories, 
The Fact, Fiction and Five Senses Questions, 
The Sacred Space, 
The Scottish Laird, 
Commentary: When Snow Hits Water, 
The Story on Another Tongue – Exercise: 30-Second Retelling, 
Kate Crackernuts, 
Commentary: Kate the Good Friend, 
Freezing Kate – Exercise: Freeze-Frame Sequencing, 
I Know a Man, 
Commentary: Bring That Man to Me!, 
Off Road in Africa – Exercise: Off-Road Retelling, 
The Lamia, 
Commentary: Salt in the Food, 
The Lamia in the Dock – Exercise: Hot-Seating, 
The Inn of the Donkeys, 
Commentary: Third Lady, 
Inn of the Donkeys – Exercise: Changing the Setting, 
Spirit Foxes, 
Commentary: Idiot for Life, 
Calm Down and Tell Me What Happened – Exercise: Point-of-View Retelling, 
And That Is the Start of the Story, 

CHAPTER 1

The Power of Stories

Positive Outcomes

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be even more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. Albert Einstein

Stories are the easiest and most powerful way to increase children's learning skills in speaking, reading, writing and creativity. These stories can be an effective educational tool benefiting all children from the reluctant reader and writer to the high achiever, and combined with the children's evolving powers of comprehension, analysis, discussion and imagination, play an instrumental role in developing their literacy skills.

These stories will:

• Challenge and expand children's imagination

• Increase their confidence and enthusiasm for independent reading and writing

• Increase confidence and ability in speaking and listening in all settings

• Increase understanding of the language and image-making involved in storytelling and writing

• Increase children's ability to use language to explore their own experiences and imaginary worlds

• Increase children's understanding of plot, character and story structure

• Increase their skills, understanding and use of grammar and punctuation

• Increase and enrich their vocabulary, pronunciation and word recognition

• Increase their confidence in public speaking

• Increase their confidence in their own creative skills

• Lead to their personal growth and development

• Bind groups and classes together

• Create a unique sharing experience

• Give a creative boost to learning across the school and in the home.

Storytelling has always been part of the human experience. Stories are universal, crossing boundaries of language, culture and age. Oral stories have always been with us as an enjoyable and entertaining way to teach children human history, traditions, culture, morality and other complex ideas. Our stories help define who we are. Our sense of identity is forged by the stories we tell ourselves, and they can also help build and preserve a group's sense of community.

The importance of stories in the overall development of young children is well documented. Children's ability to grasp the concept of narrative appears at a very young age, and stories provide a key means to understand the world around them as well as other people and themselves. Stories mirror human thought. Evidence from neurology and psychology leads to the conclusion that humans think in narrative structures. Concepts conveyed in story form – more than ideas explained with logic and analysis – imprint themselves naturally into human minds.

There is also strong evidence to suggest that young children who are read to and told stories from a young age have considerable advantages at school, not only in the development of literacy skills, but also in the development of social skills, such as empathy and being able to relate to others.

The more stories that children know at an early age, the more likely that they will be successful as lifelong learners. But stories are not just for children; they are a communal activity, and if teachers and parents tell stories to children the positive effect is magnified.

CHAPTER 2

The Fact, Fiction and Five Senses Questions

When telling a story to children something wonderful happens. After between 60 and 90 seconds the children stop watching the storyteller and begin to see the story. Their own imaginations begin to create their own unique version of the story. If you mention a wood, the boy from Somalia sees a completely different wood to the girl from Vietnam or from Middlesborough. Everybody in the room sees a different wood. It all depends on their life experience and their cultural references. Throughout the story the children's imaginations have created unique versions of the characters and backgrounds and even different readings of the plot. By the end of the tale there have been not one but thirty different stories told.

'... and that is the end of the story.' There is now a cacophony of voices from the carpet. The children are now vocalising the story. They are retelling it. Sometimes describing their best bits or just commenting on the experience. There is not a lot of listening going on. Often two children face each other and speak simultaneously. But this is not about listening. This is about processing and exploring the images they have made. The story is still fresh and live for them. The story is still continuing. It remains in the room.

I encourage teachers to savour these moments and not intervene. They must stay quietly watching. These are precious moments where the images are still being processed. After about two minutes the teacher brings the children to a central focus. I say two minutes because a confident speaker or dominant classroom personality may impose his or her own visual images onto the group. The teacher's task is to keep intact each child's unique imaging vision.

Now begins the exploration of those images. I ask that teachers refrain from soliciting generalisations and opinions about the quality of the story (Did you enjoy that? Wasn't it great when ...?). The task is to begin a communal retelling, an exploration of the differences in the images perceived by each individual. One way to achieve this is the five questions.

There are three sets of five questions each. Each set has a different function.

• The Fact Questions

• The Fiction Questions

• The Five Senses Questions

The Fact Questions

These questions are there to re-establish the narrative of the story. In doing this they also recall the image for each child. They must be very general and basic, of the 'Who?', 'What?', 'Where?' variety. No description.

So for example, for 'Little Red Riding Hood' the questions could be:

• Who sent the child into the wood with a basket of food?

• Who did the child meet in the wood?

• Why was the child bringing food into the wood?

• What did the wolf put on before jumping into bed?

• Where was Granny when Red Riding Hood knocked at her door?

These do not have to be in narrative order. With older children it might be challenging to skip back and forth through the story along the narrative line. These questions...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Liberalis
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1782798242
• ISBN 13: 9781782798248
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 93
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar