Storytelling Activities to Support
the New York State Standards for English Language Arts
New Learning Standards for English Language Arts have been developed in New York State that require students at all grade levels to demonstrate skills in speaking and listening as well as in reading and writing. The following activities developed by Heather Forest utilize the art of storytelling to explore speaking and listening skills.
Speaking and Listening:
For Information
For Literary Response and Expression
For Critical Analysis and Evaluation
For Social Interaction
1. Speaking and Listening For Information
Practicing Factual Recall
Facts are data. Once data is collected we can interpret, analyze, evaluate, or apply it. Factual recall is somewhat mechanical but it provides the basis for more creative uses of information.
Read or Tell a Folktale to the Class.
Ask students to listen carefully to the tale so that afterwards they can answer simple, factual, non-subjective questions such as inquiries related to who, what, where, or when.
Who: Name the main characters.
What: Describe one action that a character in the tale did.
Where: Describe a detail mentioned in the story that refers to the setting of the tale.
When: Make a linear timeline of the sequence of events of the plot.
Keep in mind that since listeners create, in their imagination, much of the subjective detail of a story that is heard, assessing factual recall must be based on information overtly contained in the story. (Thanks to Karen Morgan for this thought) Unlike watching TV, story listeners create the costumes, scenery, and character details in their own imaginations. Factual questions should not be about subjective detail.
Exploring Comprehension
Once a folktale plot is understood as a sequence of events, students can use this information to explore further comprehension and creative arts activities.
Interpretive Activities:
Have students generally summarize the folktale.
Have students generously retell the folktale in dramatic style with character dialogue, Have students differentiate between the characters by creating distinctive voice qualities and gestures for each character in the tale.
Have students discuss their sense of the underlying meanings or messages in the story (moral)? Have students imagine themselves as a character in the tale. Would they have made the same choices? Why or why not?
Compare two versions of the story's plot as told by different authors or by two or more cultures. Notice similarities and differences.
* See Storytelling Skills Rubric
2. Speaking and Listening for Literary Response and Expression
Generating New Ideas:
Creativity allows us to take information and use it in innovative, unique, and interesting ways.
Read Or Retell A Folktale To The Class:
Ask students to write a sequel to the folktale predicting how another episode might evolve.
Ask students to create a scene that happens before the plot of the folktale actually begins.
Ask students to imagine the folktale set in modern times.
Invent a different way to retell the folktale in written form from the point of view of one of the characters as a:
Diary entry (communication to one's self)
Newspaper report (a public communication)
Letter to a friend (a communication to a trusted associate)
Revise a classic fable by rehumanizing the animal characters. Give the generic characters names and retell the story featuring humans instead of animals.
Have students plan a storytelling concert celebrating a cultural heritage. Have them investigate the culture by researching the ethnic group in the library or on the Internet. Have each student learn a folktale from the culture. Bring in foods of the ethnicity and have a feast.
Ask student to create the following narrative forms based on a folktale plot:
a picture book
a puppet show
a play
a ballad
a narrated pantomime show
a storytelling presentation
3. Speaking and Listening For Critical Analysis and Evaluation
Evaluating, Judging, Having an Opinion
Storytelling encourages empathy and a respect for different points of view.
Personal Taste:
Ask students to listen to several folktales read out loud or retold from an anthology of folktales found in the 398.2 section of the library. Have students choose, from those read, a story they would enjoy retelling themselves. Some "point of view" discussion topics: What about the folktale chosen attracted the student? With which character did he or she identify most? Would he or she behave differently or the same as the characters in the tale who find themselves in a predicament.
Understanding Public Opinion:
Ask students to develop a list of generally accepted standards of communal behavior such as co-operation, honesty, and sharing etc. that encourage people to live together in a peaceful, productive way. Have students find an ancient folktale that expresses a useful societal value that might still be relevant today.
Relativity Of Standards
