Once Upon an If: The Storythinking Handbook

Description

If you want to tell more stories in the classroom but lack the confidence to do so... If you need guidance finding stories that are good to get children thinking... If you like using stories in your teaching but want to get more from them than the moral at the end... Once Upon an If is the book for you! In his brand new book, award-winning author Peter Worley provides a comprehensive guide to everything a would-be storyteller needs, including how to bring a story to life, tips on how to memorise a story and improvise descriptions, and techniques for using tone, movement and timing to engage and involve the children in your class. Once Upon an If also comprises a treasury of stories, new and old, written especially to get a young audience thinking actively about the deeper issues that lie behind and within the tales. Guidance notes, lesson plans and activity questions are included with every story and there is a companion website including extra resources for you to use on your interactive whiteboard. Once Upon an If draws on Peter's ten years of experience as a philosophy teacher, trainer and storyteller to help any teacher place stories and storytelling where they should be - back at the heart of teaching. Cover Half Title Also available Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Preface Introduction Storytelling animals What is in this book? Online resources Who is this book for? How to use this book Part 1 The ‘How To’ of Storytelling and Storythinking 1 Thinking about stories What’s the story to storytelling? Types of story As if: truth and lies in fiction Rehearsal for life Telescope of the imagination Ethics through narrative The virtue of stories Stories and thinking Received and operational beliefs ‘Thinking with’ and ‘thinking about’ Stories and thought-experiments Concepts Wrong in the right way 2 Sheherazad’s handbook: how to tell stories The virtues of storytelling Direct communication Improvisation and embellishment Moving ‘the walls’ Varying perspectives The omnipresent narrator How to tell a story The Goldilocks Principle How to begin and end a story Tenses Nowness Persons – first, second or third? The second person – putting the audience into the story Point of view and sympathy Extension activity: the Rashomon effect Speaking and ‘lifting from the page’ Voice and voices Breathe Whose voice? Volume and projection Clarity Pace and pause Take stock Transition Audience anticipation Learning stories Word and phrase-ticks Story-memorising and memorising stories Keyword lists Chunking Three – the magic story number Story sequences Character desire and motivation Tone and register Tone and meaning Invisible punctuation Matching the register: adapting for different audiences Extension activity: exercises in style Eyes, eye-telling and eye contact Movement, gestures and expression Less is more One-spot storytelling Working in large spaces Gestures Contradiction Substituting Anticipation Physicalisation Slight physicalisation Full physicalisation Audience participation in physicalisation Using ‘story space’ Structure and the withholding of information (or The Odysseus Principle) Minimal prop principle Visualisation (or how to follow a recipe) How to describe a story Vocabulary Developing your instant thesaurus When and what to describe The smell of old books – engaging the senses Picture books and how to tell them 3 Storythinking Enquiry First Thoughts Talk Time Questions Task Questions Nested Questions Emergent Questions and Enquiries Finding the right question A good Task Question… Emergent Questions as Task Questions Socratic Questions Creating stories around questions As Clear As the Edge of a Cloud Extension discussion idea When to ask a question Making effective use of the moral Books with shortcomings and errors Ask a question from the story Concrete and abstract Real-life analogies Narrative enquiries Narrative problems Child-centred questioning The Thinking Kit Concept map Carve it up: drawing distinctions Break the circle Examples and counter examples Examples Counter Examples: ‘But what if…’ Counter examples and falsification Imaginary disagreer If it, anchor it, open it up Anchoring Opening up If-ing Debates Split debate The walk across debate The Concept Box Bite and sting: tense and person for thinking Give the audience a role in the story Re-toothing a dilemma Put your audience into the story An exercise in second person thinking Part 2 A Treasury of Stories Once Upon an If (part 1) The story Extension activity: story enquiry Once Upon an If (part 2) Matilda, The Fireless Dragon The story Once Upon an If: story-writing classroom activity Procedure Extension activity: one word storytelling The Matches The story Extension activity: story enquiry Further extension activities Extension activity 1: story enquiry Extension activity 2: tell a longer story Extension activity 3: what was it? Extension activity 4: stories Extension activity 5: flash-fiction The Boy With No Name The story Extension activity: whole-class game – who am I? The Cat That Barked The story Writing dialogues The Patience of Trees Keyword list The story Chapter 1 Chapter 2 The Promise-Slippers Keyword list The story The Six Wise Men The story Extension activities The Fair Well The story Water People The story Flat Earth The story Extension activity: research Extension activity in second person stories: putting your class in a story It The story Il Duomo The story The technique, and a (possibly messy) demonstration Extension activity: arches Research Extension activity: an enquiry about flight Urban myths The Magician’s Tricks stories Honest Sa’id The story The Fire-Stick! The story Extension activity: a magic show! Stories in verse Unfamiliar words Perform the poem Piecing together Repeat your performance Going deeper The Magic Crown The story The Square That Didn’t Fit In The story Extension activity: drawing a round square Extension activity: stories and poetry The Square That Circled The story The Luckiest Man in The World The story Extension activity: luck The Arabian Nights and The Sindbad Stories The Two Sindbads The story The Island The story The Valley of The Diamonds The story The Saddle The story Task 1: your gift Extension activity: instructions Task 2: would it be right? Extension activity: cars The Pit The story The Old Man of the Sea The story Afterword Appendix 1 Quick view steps: how to approach the stories and sessions in this book Basic enquiry procedure The stories Emergent Enquiries Using Task Questions The Concept Box Stories in verse Once Upon an If (part 1) Storytelling procedure with slideshow (available online) Once Upon an If (part 2) Once Upon an If classroom activity More stories to think with Appendix 2 The Little Story Book – story-writing template Example: Matilda, The Fireless Dragon Story mountain Example story mountain: Matilda, The Fireless Dragon Appendix 3 Story mountain and extension activities Extension activity References, bibliography and recommended resources Storytelling DVDs and television programmes Story collections Thought-experiments Philosophy books, papers and websites Philosophy in schools (P4C) Stories and writing Stories in verse (or narrative poetry) Miscellaneous