APPInep Winter issue 2019 APPInep e-Newsletter 13 final | Page 15

In the classroom
Class oral storymaking (cont.)
are with the whole class and then each group the chair. You might re-tell the story as they act but
creates a story based on where, when, what. The you might also ask them to do the dialogues in the
whole collection of stories when published can be story.
attributed to the same character. Making a book
Group making The students can make a book out of their story. I
You can ask the four basic questions but ask each normally put them in groups to work on a book
group to discuss the answers and decide on the together. Of course their story can also be
story. One could be the secretary for his or her published on a website.
group. See my article: Making books on the next issue.
Pairs rather than the whole class Re-telling the story incorrectly!
Ask questions but the students work in groups or As a game you pretend to remember the story but
pairs to create the answers. You ask the questions re-tell it with some mistakes. The class correct you.
and the students working with their partner decide You: It was a great story about a boy…
Class: a girl!
You: Oh yes! You are right. She was a girl
called Jane…
Class: Jennifer!
© Andrew Wright 2019
on their answers together in order to create two
people. Tell them that the two characters must be
very different.
Very important is to establish a ‘desire and
difficulty’ for each person they create. They may
relate the ‘desire and difficulty’ for each created
person or choose quite different ones. The desire
and difficulty struggle and resolution is the seed of
the story.
A few really good springboard activities
Dramatising the story
Estimate at least 60 to 80 minutes if you include
dramatizing each section.
When I worked with Word in Action using this
technique we kept stopping and dramatizing the
story so far or section by section of it. Students
Andrew Wright | Author, teacher trainer,
storyteller and storymaker | International
Languages Institute, Hungary
Further reading
David Heathfield (2014) Storytelling with our Students.
London. Delta.
[A book for developing as a classroom storyteller. It
features over 40 folk tales from around the world, each
one of them illustrating a different technique or activity.]
Andrew Wright (Sec Ed 2004) Storytelling with Children.
Oxford University Press.
[This book contains 32 stories and lesson plans and 92
different activities you can do with any story. Children
and teenagers.]
Andrew Wright (1997) Creating Stories with Children.
volunteered to be protagonists but also to be trees Oxford University Press.
or chairs or rooms. For example, 16 students hold [Lots of ways of helping children to make stories and
hands and make a room. One student is a door story books. Children and teenagers.]
which opens and closes. The chair might be a Andrew Wright and David A. Hill. (2008) Writing
kneeling student and another standing as a back to
Stories. Helbling Languages.
[More suitable for teenagers.]
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