IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

In story workshop right now, we are really working on understanding what a story is. Yesterday, I told two stories. One was vague and boring. It ran on and on and on with no real conclusion. The second was a beautiful tale with descriptive details. The story contained a clear beginning, middle, and end. After I had told both stories, I asked students which they liked better and why. They gave me a whole list of reasons why the second story was better. Together, we used this list to better understand some important features of a good story. We decided that 1) a story makes sense and 2) has a real ending.

Today I told two stories again. The first was about “a person.” At the end of the story, I asked the students if they had any questions. Geneva asked me who my story was about. I said it was about “a person,” but no one seemed to think that was sufficient information, so I told a second story.  The second was about a five year old little boy named Jack. Jack wore a blue shirt and green shorts in the story. He was afraid of snakes, and his teacher’s name was Miss Suzy. After finishing these stories, we talked about the word character. As a class, we concluded that it’s important to know details about the characters in your story.

Following our mini lesson, all of the students came up with great characters for their stories during independent work time. Characters in today’s stories included: a baby boy bear, someone’s mommy who likes to watch TV, a zoo terrorizing dinosaur, a family of snakes, a man names Mr. Smith who was 23 years old, Clifford, and black and blue Spidermen. It was fun getting to hear the students share their thoughtful stories with each other.

A particularly fun conversation I overheard during story workshop today involved a penguin. I was listening to Ellie and Davi tell their story about the zoo. Towards the end of their story, a dinosaur entered the zoo and began scaring all the animals. Naturally, the animals all began to run away. One of which, was the penguin.

Ellie -The penguin was scared and he flew away.

Davi – Penguins don’t fly. They waddle.

Ellie – Oh..the penguin waddled away…

Their story continued after this very calm conversation in the middle of their story telling. The girls didn’t think much of it, however I was excited to see this dialogue taking place. That conversation is an example of the power of stories and the growth that can occur when students engage in story telling together. Students teach each other factual information. They share rich verbs and adjectives that can be used in the future, and together, they turn a good story into a great story!

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