Diane Williams will be talking about creating a storytelling classroom and literacy development in the storytelling classroom. Teachers, parents, storytellers and students can effectively get involved in a systemic, sustainable, and holistic approach to learning across the curriculum by incorporating story and storytelling elements.

This discussion delves into how a storyteller can create an environment where competencies are taught through the visual, oral and aural learning thereby increasing depth of knowledge. This environment can be assessed through student participation. Diane believes that an experience of self-expression is essential to student learning. Students learn to make meaning for themselves when they incorporate storytelling. (and yes, even the shy student can learn by watching and eventually getting involved in some way.) Constructivist thinking comes from looking at the “problem” in a story. There are so many strands of learning that can be assessed from a variety of story-types, story-themes, story-motifs. Story can assist students in learning math, science, health, character education and morals. “I learned fractions by hearing and seeing a story relating to a slice of pie. I learned other math skills by reading a paragraph story and working out the problem in the story.”

Diane Williams has been singing the praises of John Dewey (1859-1952) who was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist. “When I ask teachers if they learned about Dewey in college, I receive a wholehearted reply of YES, and yet they have since forgotten. I became interested in his pedagogic creed when I read something he said that rang true to me as it relates to storytelling literacy learning.”

Storytelling allows a child to fulfill the principles as outlined by Dewey:

1) true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s power by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself;

2) the individual who is to be educated is a social individual, and society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child, we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert mass.

3) To learn to be human is to develop through the give and take of communication and we gain a sense of being as individual and distinct members of our community.

Storytelling literacy teaches students to compare, describe, solve problems, sequence, determine and so much more, but in essence storytelling literacy can help students become an expert by applying social situations to every day life. It creates a climate of inquiry conducive to real learning, eventually helping students to become experts. If we want our students to be engaged, knowledgeable, motivated, and social, then this session will look at the ways in which we can assist them in the classroom.

Here are some statistics that have been collected by the Americans for the Arts (http://www.artsusa.org/public_awareness/facts/) in which they state that young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full year are:

- 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement

- 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools

- 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair

- 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance

- 4 times more like to win an award for writing an essay or poem

- score significantly higher on quantitative tests of creative thinking

That’s what I hope and dream about when I think of storytelling literacy.

To learn more about Diane’s work goto…
http://www.dwteller.com/

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