The Society For Storytelling, is a UK-based society founded in 1993. Open to anyone with an interest in the form, they coordinate National Storytelling Week, which this year runs from the 27th January to the 3rd of February, their mission is to promote the oral tradition of storytelling which was the very first way of communicating life experiences and the creative imagination. Storytelling has been shown by studies to aid learning in children for history, increase interest in science and have a positive effect on memory. When the students do the storytelling, it can encourage higher-level thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis, as well as skills in oral composition. The Society for Storytelling has a range of resources on their website including fact sheets on hosting a story telling week as well as a list of storytellers that are available to come into schools during the week.
This year the society is posing the question what stories will you let out of the box. Remember everyone has at least one story to tell. It exists in the very air around you – Your story is the one you know best and as it is only the beginning, the stories you will tell might begin with...Once upon a time or not in my time, not in your time but in someone's time...
LGfL have a range of resources that can support you and your students during this week.
You could use Space Adventures Mission to the Moon as your story of the week, this unique and engaging cross curricular resource is based around an original story commissioned by LGfL by the award-winning author Cath Howe. It features dramatic content and a virtual reality experience linked to the narrative. The aim is to draw the learner into the turn of events that threatens the ability of our intrepid astronaut Tazz to return safely back to earth. Will her on board computer be enough to get her back safely or will she need to draw on her maths and science knowledge and understanding?
Or why not re tell the Story of Sigurd and the Dragon, a classic Norse tale of how Sigurd killed the greedy dragon Fafnir, using both AR and VR the children can be transported back 1,000 years to listen to this tale and then making use of the green screen pack that is included, they can retell this ancient tale, making use of the high quality graphics and audio included to bring their story to life.
The whole story resource features a professional storyteller offering his advice to teachers on how to incorporate storytelling across the curriculum using images, objects and structure, the resource aims to explore how storytelling can maximise the creativity within learning activities for children. By capturing the expert advice of a professional storyteller, and arranging this advice into a simple interface, it is hoped that teachers of all age groups can get inspiration on how to incorporate storytelling across the curriculum.
Children can use Audio Network to search for music that will form the back drop to their own stories or to stories that they are retelling, the network features over 50,000 individual audio files and then their stories and audio can be uploaded into Video Central. Video Central HD offers an easy-to-use web-based solution which allows teachers in London to share video and audio files with students, colleagues and partner schools. Video and audio files are uploaded using a secure web interface then encoded automatically for fast, efficient web streaming. Or why not make use of the BBC Sound Effects Archive - this large database of audio sound effects can be used within a wide range of applications in an educational context. Many sounds have multiple version to suit different uses and help enhance videos and stories.
'A picture paints a thousand words' why not use one of the thousands of pictures available from LGfL Image bank which contains high resolution licence images from a variety of LGfL content provider partners including: Royal Collection Trust and the British Library. These would be excellent to pose questions such as what is happening? What happened before the painting? What happened after? Where are the people going?
Children can also get advice on how to create their stories by well known authors in ReadingZone Live, children can get tips on writing from Anthony Horowitz, Oliver Jeffers and Cressida Cowell to name a few. There are specific sections focussing on genre, planning, character and writing which can be searched via a new writing area.
Children could make use of the writing tools with j2e tool suite to write and illustrate their story using either j2e5 or in JIT and then can blog it straight away to give their story a wider audience. Or why not use Busy things, their paint and publisher program would be excellent to use and they also have a short story template that could also be used during the week.
Early Years practitioners could make use of our Fairy Tales resource and then re tell their favourite Fairy Tale using JIT. You could also make use of Talking Stories during this week, Talking Stories 1 is ideal for KS1 and covers a range of online talking books also available in a variety of languages. Talking Stories 2 contains multi-modal resources that covers Shakespeare, Coleridge and Sherlock Holmes, while Talking Stories 3 have a range of interactive stories and traditional tales including Orpheus and Eurydice, The Parrots and the Raja and the Wishing tree, downloadable resources and planning are available for all stories.
Another fantastic resource to use during this week is Listening books, these audiobooks are great to use for SEND students as well as during whole class sessions. Titles can be streamed direct for group listening or for individuals to listen with headphones.
There is a great range of fiction and non-fiction available to support pupils from Key Stage 2 up to A-Level, including:
- British History Makers: King Henry VIII by Leon Ashworth
- GCSE English: Of Mice and Men: The Text Guide by Coordination Group Publications
- Secrets of the Rainforest: Predators and Prey by Michael Chinery
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- An Inconvenient Truth: the Crisis of Global Warming (Young Adult Version) by Al Gore
- Dates with History: 6th August 1945 The Bombing of Hiroshima by John Malam
- My Friend Walter by Michael Morpurgo
- The Elements in Poetry: Poems about Fire edited by Andrew Fusek Peters
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Face by Benjamin Zephaniah
500 Words from the BBC is another great resource to use to help children tell their story, the competition will open for the ninth year later this month. However, the site has a range of resources and ideas as well as being able to listen to previous winning entries that children can use to inspire their own story writing. Another great competition and resource is The Wicked Young Writer Awards which is open until 18th March, the Wicked Young Writer Awards is a chance for young people aged between 5 and 25, to write about absolutely anything! It’s their chance to get creative and write on any theme that interests them. You can find out more about the awards here
The fantastic Literacy Shed have also got a great blog post about why stories are important with some brilliant practical ideas.
We would love to hear some of your stories - why not share them on our twitter feed or our Facebook page #NationalStorytellingWeek