Blog #1: Learning a Story is About More than Memorization
My traditional experience with storytelling in the high school setting is limited. We don’t do much of storytelling with that age group in the classroom or the library. Sometimes we do read-alouds, but not storytelling. I did have the award-winning storyteller Darion McCloud do a session with my students to help them unlock the power of storytelling. Students then wrote their own stories and performed those stories over a beat. The magic of storytelling helps students unlock their own potential as storytellers and helps them to develop literacy skills. In her study on second graders, Agosto (2016) shows how oral storytelling helped students to practice four literacy skills: visualization, cognitive engagement, critical thinking, and story sequencing. Storytelling has the power to be entertaining and educating. Reading Seminar students (2016-2017) record their stories over beats they wrote after Darion McCloud & Bless Da Poet helped them...