Storytelling has had the largest impact on me, throughout the year on the Bucks Write course. I felt inspired by our sessions on storytelling and was eager to share with my school. Story telling gave me the confidence to use drama within lessons to develop and improve the language used by the children.
The deepening exercises proved vital when ensuring the children follow the structure of the given genre and were confident to take risks in their vocabulary and structure to their writing. By telling stories off by heart, the children learnt about language communication and ideas. By listening to stories, children were filled up with new vocabulary and the tune of well – written prose.
By children telling the stories they became active learners, using their brains to adapt the language, use their imagination and play around with drama. This technique is now used across KS2 and is used within other subjects, giving the children confidence to push the barriers.
The deepening exercises proved vital when ensuring the children follow the structure of the given genre and were confident to take risks in their vocabulary and structure to their writing. By telling stories off by heart, the children learnt about language communication and ideas. By listening to stories, children were filled up with new vocabulary and the tune of well – written prose.
By children telling the stories they became active learners, using their brains to adapt the language, use their imagination and play around with drama. This technique is now used across KS2 and is used within other subjects, giving the children confidence to push the barriers.
I completed a story telling unit with Year 3 based on Jack and the beanstalk. The unit lasted 2 weeks.
The first week involved one writing session, the other lessons included listening to the story, speaking and listening games playing ‘tell me more’ and stepping out the story. The children enjoyed using drama to re-tell their story and develop and broaden their language. They worked in partners and small groups to step out the story and freeze frame key events. These were photographed and stuck in their books. The children then referred to these photographs during their independent writing.
The children then participated in shared writing, taking away the fear of writing and encouraging the children to express their ideas, and improve others ideas. The children then completed their independent task, using drama from the week before to ensure structure within their writing and including adventurous word choices.
I created a video, recording the children’s responses to the unit. All children recorded positive messages, including how they knew what to write about, they really understood the text and they had fun!
The first week involved one writing session, the other lessons included listening to the story, speaking and listening games playing ‘tell me more’ and stepping out the story. The children enjoyed using drama to re-tell their story and develop and broaden their language. They worked in partners and small groups to step out the story and freeze frame key events. These were photographed and stuck in their books. The children then referred to these photographs during their independent writing.
The children then participated in shared writing, taking away the fear of writing and encouraging the children to express their ideas, and improve others ideas. The children then completed their independent task, using drama from the week before to ensure structure within their writing and including adventurous word choices.
I created a video, recording the children’s responses to the unit. All children recorded positive messages, including how they knew what to write about, they really understood the text and they had fun!
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Following two weeks of storytelling, using strategies suggested by Chris Smith, the children attitudes towards writing dramatically increased. At the start of my course I completed a questionnaire on children’s attitudes towards writing. Initially, 19/33 enjoyed writing with the two main negative factors being ‘finding it hard to write for long time’ and ‘handwriting because it hurts’.
After a term in Year 3, and after a unit on storytelling, 26/33 enjoyed writing and the only negative association with writing was ‘I have so many ideas but my hand hurts when I write a lot’. |
‘I have so many ideas but my hand hurts when I write a lot’. |