STORIES WITH KELLY
Oral Stories: an exciting resource for classroom teachers
Engage your students in an easy half hour of enrichment and delight!
​
Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of teaching. A well-told story focuses attention, ignites imagination, and immerses the listener in a world made of vibrant language and shared understanding. Much of language arts curriculum focuses on responding to text: analyzing, summarizing, comparing, asking and answering questions of a piece of writing. A told story can function in many of the same ways, serving as an oral, heard "text" accessible to students who might have very different reading capabilities.
​
With story videos, teachers and students can step out of ordinary time for a spell of listening--which then opens possibilities for discussion, application, and further learning.
the stories
The story videos include folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends, historical narratives and original stories from around the world. They are variously playful, serious, sad, wry, and funny. The source of every story is noted in the accompanying summary along with the intended grade level.
core educational standards
Simply listening to stories meets several core teaching goals:
-
Familiarity with the structure of narrative
-
Exposure to vocabulary, conventions of language, effective use of description, dialogue, and sequencing
-
Growth of comprehension, listening skills, visualization, and imagination
​
Discussion and follow-up activities meet further standards, including:
-
RL.1 Asking and answering questions about the details of a story
-
RL.2 Retelling stories
-
RL.3 Analyzing characters, events, ideas
-
RL. 6 Evaluating point of view
-
RL.9 Comparing/contrasting similar stories
-
W.1 Writing opinion
-
W.3 Writing narrative
-
W.7-8 Engaging in further research/reflection
-
SL.1 Engaging in collaborative conversation
-
SL.4-6 Presenting material orally