MaryJo Maichack | Storyteller & Minstrel

Why Include Storytelling in School?
- from The National Council of Teachers of English Position Statement from the Committee on Storytelling

Listeners encounter
both familiar and new language patterns

"...Learned oral skills can be used and built on in our classrooms in many ways. Students who search their memories for details about an event as they are telling it orally will later find those details easier to capture in writing. Writing theorists value the rehearsal, or prewriting, stage of composing. Sitting in a circle and swapping personal or fictional tales is one of the best ways to help writers rehearse.

Listeners encounter both familiar and new language patterns through story. They learn new words or new contexts for already familiar words. Those who regularly hear stories, subconsciously acquire familiarity with narrative pattern and begin to predict upcoming events. Both beginning and experienced readers call on their understanding of patterns as they tackle unfamiliar texts. Then they recreate those patterns in both oral and written compositions.

Tellers and listeners find a
reflection of themselves in stories.

Learners who regularly tell stories become aware of how an audience affects a telling, and they carry that awareness into their writing. Both tellers and listeners find a reflection of themselves in stories. Through the language of symbol, children and adults can act out through a story the fears and understandings not so easily expressed ... in everyday talk. Story characters represent the best and worst in humans. By exploring story territory orally, we explore ourselves-whether it be through ancient myths and folktales, literary short stories, modern picture books, or poems. Teachers who value a personal understanding of their students can learn much by noting what story a child chooses to tell and how that story is uniquely composed in the telling. Through this same process, teachers can learn a great deal about themselves.

Story is the best vehicle for passing on factual information. Historical figures and events linger in children's minds when communicated by way of a narrative. The ways of other cultures, both ancient and living, acquire honor in history. The facts about how plants and animals develop, how numbers work, or how government policy influences history-any topic, for that matter-can be incorporated into story form and made more memorable if the listener takes the story to heart.

...The simpleminded younger brother in olden tales, while disregarded for awhile, won the treasure in the end every time.

The NCTE Committee on Storytelling invites you to reach for a treasure -- riches of storytelling."

Single copies of this state available free upon request from NCTE.
Contact Mary Jo for details.