Podcasts!

You can find a list of podcasts and related resources with amazing classroom potential in this past post about remote learning options, but I mainly listen to podcasts for myself. They make cooking and housework more fun and are a great way to get through a road trip (if my baby allows us to listen to one, that is). There are so many podcasts related to education and teaching, but for the most part I like to listen to ones that are less classroom focused and more of a break. Here are some recommendations to help us get through another unprecedented and unpredictable year in the classroom.

• Educators Lead: Nina was interviewed and featured on here, it’s a great way to hear from other educators

• Teaching Hard History from Learning for Justice (previously Teaching Tolerance): this podcast goes through real events of American history, most of which I did not learn about in school. Season 1 and 2 are about American slavery and Season 3 is about the Civil Rights Movement. You hear from historians, other scholars, and educators.

• Radiolab Presents More Perfect: listening to this podcast you learn so much about Supreme Court cases, laws, and the amendments (they are doing a series on the amendments right now), which helped me have the background I needed to answer questions when I taught government. Plus, these are human stories about how certain cases and laws came to be, so they are fascinating. 

• Story District Presents: I love Story District and they were an incredible resource when we taught our beloved storytelling unit. Gabby even performed on their stage twice to prepare for that Storytelling unit and the kids gave her invaluable tips like “wear black and waterproof shoes in case you pee in your pants from being scared”. Words to live by! More notably, we first saw the one and only Anne Thomas perform at a Story District show and she was a regular visitor to our classroom for a few years after that. This podcast is hilarious and compelling and I enjoyed it even more as I listened to it during the pandemic when my movements and activities were restricted. 

• The Moth: another great storytelling podcast, I have tried other ones, but somehow always come back to The Moth. As I mentioned above, can be great escapism and very entertaining.

• Storycorps: the last storytelling podcast I’ll mention, this was also a great resource and inspired a project when we taught storytelling. This podcast usually picks a theme and has conversations (or interviews) between two people. There is so much to learn and enjoy.

• For you: Literacy and Science of Reading Podcasts! 

  • Reading Rockets 

  • Teaching Reading and Learning 

  • Educate 

  • Melissa and Lori Love Literacy 

And a bonus if you need more convincing/ are curious! 

• Why You Should Bring Podcasts in the Classroom (article) 

Presenting at NCTE

Late last month, I had the honor of participating on a panel presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention. I was sharing details about our beloved storytelling unit on a panel about cultural relevancy, the arts, and student voice! I was lucky to be paired up with an excellent co-presenter (the panel ended up just being the two of us!) and loved sharing details about what still is one of my favorite units to teach.

I was originally slated to be on a panel with four other people, but as it worked out, only two of us were able to present. We were both able to share more details about our work and had more time for questions (which is often my favorite part). Not surprisingly, the highlight of my presentation really was the video of a student performance from our Final Stage show where every single one of our students performed a true story about their life.

Other things I loved presenting about: Anne Thomas, who was our guest speaker/storyteller and introduced the concept of storytelling as a performance with her story, Burden No More, how we used both Story District and StoryCorps as resources, the incredibly valuable tie in to social emotional learning as stories help us both understand ourselves and learn from each other, and how I wish Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing new picture book, The Day You Begin, existed when we were teaching this unit.

I truly loved seeing how the audience responded to my student’s story. I spoke about the bares bones of the unit, why it was transformative, student quotes, and resources and ideas, but the student video was far more powerful than anything I said! I also was asked many great questions about how to use storytelling with preservice teachers and adults in general. There was a lot of engagement with the idea of storytelling as validation of less prominent stories or voices, and connections to other cultures with oral history traditions (especially Native Americans and tribes fighting for state and/or federal recognition).

It was also amazing to be around so many teachers of English (and authors! And readers!)! I enjoyed all the nerdy, literary, and punny shirts and tote bags and just general love for books and authentic literacy opportunities. Thank you to my wonderful co-presenter, our audience, and all the other educators I was lucky enough to meet at NCTE!

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Storycorps inspired storytelling project

Storytelling is one of the best units I have ever taught. It seamlessly integrates our Reading and Writing instruction, encourages students to use their voices and consider other perspectives, develops communication, presentation, and persuasive skills, and both pushes and allows students to express themselves in a new way. One of the stories we have our students write and perform is inspired by Storycorps and based on an interview with someone close to them.

The Storycorps inspired story is the 2nd writing project of our storytelling unit. Timing wise, it usually coincides with Grandparents and Special Friends Day (a tradition at our school), where grandparents/special friends come to school with students for a shortened schedule. We use the Homeroom time to watch Q & A, an animated Storycorps interview by a child named Joshua of his mother. After we watch the interview, we have our students interview their grandparents and special friends. Every year, we regret that we run out of time to hear from more of the students after they discover fascinating and unexpected facts about their grandparents/special friends.

Once we are back to regular classes, we introduce the new assignment and project. We ask students:

Whose story would you like to tell?  What does it mean to share someone else’s story?  Why might we want to do this?

Then we watch a Storycorps interview. We find that the animated ones are better for our 5th graders in terms of maintaining attention. Two we love are Facundo the Great and Mario & his daughter. Next, we brainstorm some interview questions and do peer interviews to try them out! Finally, we explain the assignment and hand out a list of questions. We give students a few days to interview someone and record their interview. We’ve found it helps to give them over the weekend in case they want to try and interview someone who doesn’t live near them over the phone.

We created our own list of suggested questions using Storycorps Great Questions. We also ask students to record their interviews and email or share the recording with us. Many students used their parents’ phones or tablets to do so, but we also walked them through how to use Vocaroo which is a free site where you can record audio and easily the files. We also encourage students to take notes either during or after the interview. Students brainstorm who they would like to interview. For many students, it is one of their parents, but we have also had students interview nannies, grandparents, uncles, and siblings. Our only stipulation is that the interviewee is not too young (older siblings work better), as we need them to have enough material to write a story. Storycorps also has an app and resources to make the process easier (and they go on a mobile tour!).

After all the interviews are completed, we start the brainstorming process! We ask students:

What understanding did you gain about your relationship with someone after interviewing them/hearing their stories?

We let them talk this out either with a partner or sometimes use inside/outside circles to let them work with a couple different people.

Next, we have them reflect and get ideas down in their Writer’s Notebooks. We then transition into showing them a graphic organizer so they have an idea how to structure their stories. We created and filled out this graphic organizer based on Felicia Pride’s TEDx talk, We’re all characters in life’s great narrative. We watch this TEDx talk earlier in the unit when we talk about characters in stories and how a “real” character is multi-dimensional. It is a great resource to look back at when students feel stuck.

After filling out the graphic organizers, we let students draft, edit, revise and finally share! They have three minutes to perform their story for half of our class (13 students). We set the room up in a TEDx talk like setting, with a stool to sit on, a “backdrop” (we project an image on our whiteboard!) and the overhead lights off with a lamp “spotlight.”

The stories our students share are truly amazing. We have heard reflections on relationships with parents, including a touching story of a child’s father and his many siblings. She reflected how she always wanted a sibling, but realized she has someone to go on silly adventures with already.. her dad! Another student interviewed her nanny and told the story of getting through an earthquake together and how this made her rethink the concept of “family” to be more inclusive of everyone she loves. We heard stories of love, hope, resilience, immigration, adversity, and relationships. We love witnessing this wonderful exercise in taking someone else’s perspective and learning about yourself in the process.

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Visit from a Storyteller!

We were incredibly fortunate to have the one and only Anne Thomas come in and visit our classroom! Her visit is an annual tradition as part of the introduction to our storytelling unit and it is a day we look forward to all year.

My co-teacher Gabby and I first saw Anne perform at a Story District show in DC, and were immediately impressed. Later that week, we emailed her, casually mentioned we were her biggest fans, and asked her to come visit our class. And so the tradition was born!

Our storytelling unit is an integrated Reading and Writing unit that takes place every spring in our 5th grade class. Students read, write, listen to, and watch amazing stories. Before Anne’s visit, we had read some great stories with the kids (including Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, by Peter Brown) and talked about what components are key to having a great story.

Our "A Good Story Must Have" checklist: an invaluable tool for readers, writers, and performers!

Students brainstorm in pairs and come up with a long list of important attributes of a good story. Then, we introduce our ‘A Good Story Must Have’ checklist. This is a key tool we use as readers and writers throughout the unit. We start finding these elements in our independent reading books. Next, we tell the students that we have a special guest coming in..

And the guest is Anne! She talks to them about storytelling as an art, how we are all storytellers (you’ve never told anyone the story of how your day went?) and then performs a story in the room with us! The story Anne performs is about going to see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, but it is also about the danger of imposing limits on yourself.

After Anne performs, students have an opportunity to ask questions (which often has to be limited or they would go on forever) and then we go through our checklist to see if Anne’s story has all of the elements a good story must have. (It does!)

Next, Anne asks students to think of a time when they imposed a limit on themselves. It can be as small as telling yourself you don’t like a vegetable without trying it. Students brainstorm individually and then work in pairs or small groups to tell their stories. Anne works with students too, helping them pull a story out of their memories or experiences.

Finally, we ask for volunteers - does anyone want to get up and try to tell their story to the class? Amazingly, some students always do! This year, we had three students who stood up and told their stories (coached by Anne) with bravery and honesty. They talked about doubting themselves as athletes, writers, and more. They were vulnerable, honest, and brave. Their classmates were impressed and inspired and ready to find their own voices as storytellers.

We cannot wait to see what our students come up with next and we are so grateful that Anne came in and shared her craft with us. Stay tuned to check out some other pieces from our storytelling unit, leave a comment and ask us questions, or check out this piece on how it comes together and why we do it.

 

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"Telling Truth" published on Bright via Medium!

We submitted a piece about our storytelling unit to Bright, Medium's platform for news about innovation in education and it was published today!  Please read Telling Truth: Why we teach storytelling to fifth graders and let us know what you think!

Our Storytelling Unit!

The year is wrapping up in 5th grade! Where has the time gone?! We love many things about the end of the school year, but our favorite is the culmination of our Storytelling Unit. We have a big Final Stage show in which every single one of our 26 students steps up onto the stage and tells a true story LIVE!

There are so many reasons why we love teaching storytelling. It is rigorous, social justice oriented, colorful, and has the power to be incredibly personal and meaningful. We love how it opens up spaces for each student's voice, and we love how it allows space for deeper connections with family friends, especially in the act of reflection. However, this year, we had our students fill out a survey so we could have a sense of what they thought about studying the craft of storytelling. Check out some of their thoughts below!

On what IS storytelling anyway?

G: I have learned that storytelling is more than words coming out of your mouth. It is a memory, a feeling and a meaning. I have learned how strong that is.

C: One thing I learned about story telling is that a real story has to have all these things that some memories don't.  I could have told a lot of different stories but they might not have meaning or change so they can't be a story.

R: Other than learning about what storytelling is in the first place, I have learned about how to make a sad story happy, and how to make a memory have meaning. I have also learned how to take these memories that I have and make myself learn something valuable that I will always carry with me.

On what storytelling taught us about others:

G:I have learned that everyone has their own thoughts running through their brains that I do not know about. They have things that I do not know about. I have to respect that.

R:I have learned about so many stories that people in my class have gone through. I have learned what people really felt during different times.

G2: I have learned what some people like and don’t like, I have learned what people have done in the past and if they liked it or not, and best of all I have more info about my friends and what might upset them if I somehow bring the subject up.  I also learned a lot of new messages that I didn’t have in my stories and now I can use those new messages in my lifetime.

S: What I have learned about others in this unit is that people have many stories to share and that if you listen, you can learn about them and get closer to friends.

On what storytelling has taught us about ourselves:

C: One thing I learned about myself is that even though I might not be the best writer and sometimes I have trouble with coming up with ideas I love the performing. I really love going on stage and performing. In a lot of the time writing is hard for me but, storytelling feels so natural because you're talking about you.

R: Other than learning that I love to tell stories I have learned so many things about myself. To list a few, I have learned that I am good at acting in the stories but I have to push myself a lot harder to find messages and to convey meanings; I have also taught myself how to push myself to do my best.

F: I have relearned these stories that were just in my head and released them from the back of my mind and let them come out of my head using words.  I have also learned these lessons from myself over again and I am going to follow the examples that I said in my story over again to be a better person.

S: What I learned about me in this unit is that I have had really meaningful experiences that I did not think were important, and that I could not see the value in the experience. Now I see value in lots of experiences I have had.

E: I think that writing this reflection right now is what is helping me learn about storytelling. This is because this reflection is giving me the time to sit back and and realize all these things about storytelling. There were moments during the storytelling unit where I was mad, or nervous, or unsure, or rushed, or many other things. Now, I can see beyond that and I realize that this unit, even though it has probably been the most challenging writing unit I have ever had in my years at Sheridan, it has helped me a lot. And I think I am learning from all the challenges that our storytelling unit presented.

And finally, they wouldn't be 5th graders without some spunk (and emojis!):

G: Can you please tell the people who thought that we were too young for storytelling that this was one of the best writing units ever and that I had so much fun telling my story and hearing others! Thank you. (;

We hope even if you don't have time for a full blown storytelling unit, that you find spaces to hear and share stories in your classrooms and communities. If you are thinking about a storytelling unit or workshop and are on the fence-- please take it on! If you need any support, feel free to reach out to us, we'd love to talk about it with you!