Let’s Talk
A monthly column for parents and educators.
Learning With Personal Stories
Summary: Through examples, readers learn how storytelling engages and motivates students to write; enriches teaching and learning by tapping into real-life experiences; and reinforces reading, speaking, listening, and thinking competencies.
The cultural and educational benefits of storytelling are legion. With the new Tapestry of Tales: Stories of Self, Family, and Community Provide Rich Fabric for Learning from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, teachers and other interested adults learn how they can use personal, family, and community stories to bring children’s narrative voice into a learning environment, connecting it with the world outside.
Through examples from actual preschool to high school classrooms, readers learn how storytelling engages and motivates students to write; enriches teaching and learning by tapping into real-life experiences; and reinforces reading, speaking, listening, and thinking competencies. The book also delves into research on the role of narrative as a way of understanding experiences and how that influences school success.
In one Alaskan classroom, kindergarten and first-grade students collect true bear stories from family members before delving into a month-long study of bear habits and habitat. “Some of the kids can write the story themselves. Some of their families write it for them,” reports their teacher. “But the language development and the literacy that comes out of it are very rich.” The teacher weaves a Native American bear legend into the unit, which students transform into a play and act out with animal masks they’ve crafted themselves. The unit ends with a teddy bear picnic, complete with bear-shaped pastries and favorite stuffed animal “guests” brought from home.
In a one-room schoolhouse in rural Montana, middle school students use a community history project to produce cards worthy of Hallmark. By interviewing town residents and consulting historical sources, the children gather facts and figures and amusing anecdotes about some of the town’s landmark structures. The stories are printed on note cards, along with careful pen and ink drawings of the buildings. The teacher says that community members quickly snatched up the first batch of cards, requesting new editions featuring their own favorite buildings.
Each example in Tapestry of Tales concludes with a project outline, contact information, and suggested student reading.
Tapestry of Tales includes an annotated bibliography of writing resources and an extensive list of children's and young adult literature to support writing about self, family, and community. It's available for purchase from NWREL.
This column by Karen Lytle Blaha is provided as a public service by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, a nonprofit institution working with schools and communities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
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