Bringing Stories to Life

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FRUSTRATION!

Starving teachers are trying to send me a message. I don`t know why they are so angry. Was it something I said?

Workshop outline

Creative Strategies at the Heart of Effective Second-Language (ESL) Instruction

Workshop outline –

Roger Lemelin, Ottawa, August 12, 2009

Can Child Centered Classes Cultivate Creative and Caring Communities that Consolidate a Culture of Loving Learning?

What?! Boredom is not an option?!

3 questions: Get to know the clientele and prepare for work together

Do Korean teachers prefer red wine or white? Survey– Venn diagram

There is a petition for Michael Jackson to be offered the Nobel Peace Prize – would you sign? Argumentative – line graph.

What do you think of my haircut? What have you done?! Narrative – descriptive/opinion

Teaching in an attitude of empathy, camaraderie and fun!

Childhood depression and dropout rates are increasing. Are teaching methods aligned with what current research in effective pedagogy, developmental psychology and brain plasticity?

-Pedagogy –the structure and methods for effective instruction in reading: Balanced Literacy. Basically, instruction is structured to lead students through a range of activities that begin with shared activities and direct instruction, and gradually releases control to allow students to work increasingly independently with more opportunities for analysis, creation and assessment.

-Developmental psychology – Leaning is not 'fillling of empty buckets', but more like a web of connections. Learning has to engage the whole child including individual`s emotions and the social context. Motivation is the key; empathy, validation and a feeling of personal safety are essential.

-Brain research, plasticity –The brain is an experience-oriented organ – the richness of the environment is crucial. Deep connections based in emotion-rich, creative contexts promote long-term retention.

To put it simply, teaching language through the arts is effective because students feel engaged, validated and more areas of their brains are activated.

Model for group development – there`s and elephant in the room!!!

Any group of people that are together for a period of time to accomplish a specific task will go through stages of development – it's only normal! This is true for students, sports teams, office workers ... even couples! By paying attention to them, you will learn to teach to the flow of the class.

1. Forming – The honeymoon period – everyone is nice and accommodating.
   
2. Storming – The battle for control –noticing individual differences – establishing who does what.
   
3. Norming -Establishing how the group will work – recognizing strengths and exploring tasks.
   
4. Performing – Well oiled machine – conflicts resolved so everyone can work to full potential. Members care for each other's wellbeing and will promptly take care of conflicts.
   

Warm-up – suspending disbelief, establishing empathy and trust through basic drama skills

There are no right or wrong answers or ways of doing these! While some expressions may be comical, though, it is crucial that a safe climate be created by keeping the focus on the task at hand. Complementing student`s attention, positive risk-taking and concentration in the use of their voice and body will pay huge dividends.

Magic circle (forming)- How do we create a climate in which all members feel comfortable, understood, and an essential part of the group`s creative undertakings? Set up into a circle, preferably on the floor with the furniture pushed aside.

• Awakening the dragon – like hand puppets, students let one hand depict a range of different animals that the teacher calls out. Start simple:
  

  
  

Simple	Medium	More abstract
a snake	a chicken	a wall
a fish	a young chicken	a tall stone wall
a small bird	a wise old chicken	-a tall stone wall in a rainstorm
a butterfly	a newborn chick	- wall crumbling over centuries
a fly	a newborn snake
a cat	a hungry snake
an elephant	a hungry snake hunting
a duck
an eagle

The sky is the limit! You can add sound, a second hand, the element of time...even interaction. The goal is to feel the potential. Once there, move on!

• Echo of expression – Each participant is invited to offer a `sound and movement' expression. All other participants immediately echo it. It is safest to explore a common experiences such as:
  
  • a season, an emotion, or something slightly more abstract like an element (wind, water, fire, earth),
    
  • name game: say and express with body
    
  • first impression ... of a place (arriving in Canada), a moment (stepping outside on the coldest day of winter), an event (seeing someone being bullied in the school yard)
    
  • right now: as spontaneous as it gets!
    

    
    

• Peter Pan`s invisible canon ball – Pass it around...it can become anything! Be work slowly and clearly allowing every part of your body to show the transformation.
  

  
  

• magic broom – more narrative, and spontaneous participation.
  

Complete a puzzle (storming)– childs-play?! Creating tension, offering tools, and processing the experience.

• clarify rules that make the task rather difficult, but not impossible.
  
• brainstorm strategies together -vocabulary, method, controls. You may actually interrupt the exercise to allow participants to share difficulties and successful strategies.
  
• processing is about common recognizing aspects of the experience (empathy), creating forum to share frustrations and suggest possible solutions (teamwork).
  
• try it again in a different configuration or a different task!
  

Morning Breather

Beginning to explore expression in learning activities

Shared reading – shared experience

Making explicit the connection to self (knowledge, experience and emotions) and previous readings. Use strategies like predicting, visualizing, inferring, determining importance and synthesizing.

We will begin this work with nursery rhymes, but it is effective with any shared reading.

• Pre-read- how we find out what it might be about and how it might relate to us,
  
  • look at words, text qualities, choice of images and colors
    
  • imagine, wonder, maybe, is it possible
    
• read while insuring empathy and understanding (ie. massaging the relation to story),
  
• post reading – processing the experience, analyse, evaluate, process, create
  

Statues – Freeze the moment

Statues are a wonderfully simple tool to summarize a story, experience, a moment. The story is boiled down to the essentials showing the characters, place, and main problem or situation being dealt with. This is very helpful in helping students to learn the foundation of storytelling, story writing, exploration, critique and creation ... and lots of amazing genuine communication.

Let`s have fun:

• Learn a nursery rhyme. Sing it!
  
• What is it about? Create a statue of the main event (the most important moment).
  
• Create two more: one before the helps us understand the characters, time and place, and another that depicts the end or conclusion of the song.
  
• See if you can match both elements up! Have one group sing while the other group shoes the statues.
  

Share these works with the class, other classes or even with family members! Record them and post them to a class blog – you`ll have them for life!

Lunch Break

Getting to the heart of the matter– Students learn when they are personally invested

Warm up - Alphabet soup, juggle a song, mathematical vocabulary

Ultimately, education is not about tests, marks and the money you`ll make in the future – it is about becoming full, rich, passionate, able people who feel validated, valued and hopeful enough to be wholeheartedly engaged in life.

Class controls and retention strategies

• Glue it to the brain with a song. 'Come join us in a big circle...'
  
• Do the same with subject specific vocabulary – brainstorm, select a tune, create a song!
  

Guided reading –Read-aloud together in a small group, relate to self, understand, summarize and discuss points of view. We will use a 'fishbowl technique' to model this form of reading.

Next step, use a form of writing to respond to the text. Forms of writing to consider:

• Recounting, illustrating or describing an event past or present
  
• Procedural – How to...
  
• Journalistic - informing
  
• Personal narrative or journal – importance of the tone or voice
  
• Poetic – a more artistic use of language
  
• Persuasive – opinion
  
• Debate – two sides share arguments
  

Bringing learning to life – the creative process

While the following exercise may seem a bit difficult for your students, I encourage you to give it a try. Find material that is pertinent to their interests as I hope I have found for you. We would, of course, focus on a specific writing form, but let`s keep it open-ended today.

Let`s have fun:

• Guided reading. In interest groups of 4, read and discuss impressions from the text. Make personal connections, they are the best, really.
  
• Think, Pair and Share. Listen without interrupting and prepare a question that will deepen your understanding of the speaker`s experience. Learn something new about her.
  
• Brainstorming. How can your group share the essence of this article and your thoughts and opinions on it.
  
• Framework. Once a writing form and intention is determined, begin to use statues, sounds or songs, or other media to illustrate your response to the article. Be sure to include some spoken word – be it narration, dialogue, songs or other.
  
• Development. Here is where it all comes together. It can be challenging at times, especially if many group members are feeling personally invested. Keep an open mind, embrace other`s ideas and feelings all while sharing yours.
  
• The Countdown. In the last minutes, you will need to finalize your production. Don`t worry if some details are unresolved, so long as everyone is good with the essence. That being said, it is time to go through the piece confirming the decisions made previously.
  
• Presentations. Be your character. Be in the action. Your audience is eager to learn from and be captivated by your presentation.
  
• Feedback. Impressions, questions, constructive criticism.
  

Thank you for your openness and for the tremendously important role you play in many young lives.

Roger Lemelin

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

The Sheltering Sky