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Please use this space as a place to share ideas, inform others of where you're at in the storytelling process for your class and what's working or not.
Try this link...These are the authors of __Children Tell Stories: Teaching and Using Storytelling in the Classroom__//,// the book we are using for out storytelling unit. In particular, check out the **just for teachers** tab on the right. [|Beauty and the Beast Storytellers]


 * Why Storytelling? How will it help improve student learning?**

At Glacier Valley, our recent test scores confirmed that girls outperform boys in Reading, Writing and Math across all subcategories (Free & Reduced Lunch, Alaska Native, English Language Learners and Special Needs students).

1. Michael Gurian who researched how boys best learn in his book, __The Minds of Boys__ encourages the use of physical movement as a strategy to motivate boys in their learning of language arts skills. “ Although physical movement keeps the verbal centers of the brain stimulated and mitigates against boredom, performance anxiety, and rest states, it’s a very different way of helping boys read and write than most schools now allow” (141).

2. Oral language development is key to reading and writing skills. "Four decades of research has established oral language as the foundation of reading and writing development, especially for intermediate students." - __Guiding Readers and Writers: Grades 3-6__ by Fountas & Pinnell


 * Goals:**
 * to expose students to various types of folktales from all over the world
 * to motivate students to read and reread stories multiple times
 * to provide authentic performance opportunities for students to tell their stories


 * Process:** To help build confidence for telling their story at an evening Storytelling Festival for family and friends, students will have many opportunities to practice telling their story. Throughout the process, students will practice their stories at home with parents and siblings.
 * 1) Tell it to the wall (everyone at the same time faces the wall and begins telling their story)
 * 2) Tell it to a partner
 * 3) Tell it to a small group
 * 4) Tell it to the classroom
 * 5) Tell it to another classroom as a visiting performer
 * 6) Tell it at our evening Storytelling Festival

Works Cited

Gurian, Michael and Kathy Stevens. __The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from__ __Falling Behind in School and Life__. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Hamilton, Martha and Weiss, Mitch. __Children Tell Stories: Teaching and Using Storytelling in the Classroom__. Katonah, NY: Richard C. Owen, 2005.