Background
Children's Reading Rights
Reading Policy Guidelines
Create and print articles and posters for reading promotion
Produce literature-based workbooks based to reinforce reading with understanding
Facilitate reading-related workshops e.g. Storytelling Technique workshops
Conduct online literature project
Formulate guidelines for creative writing and reading clubs
Organise Reading Tents during school holidays to sustain reading motivation
Formulate an ELITS Reading Policy

REPORT ON ELITS' READING TENT held in Bergville, 30 September 2005


A view of the smaller tents from inside the main story tent	Learners from Intumbane Primary School, in Emangwaneni ward, also performed stories

On 30 September 2005 in the grounds of Bergville Primary School, ELITS Ukhahlamba Region had pleasure in presenting a unique event, aimed at encouraging the enjoyment of stories in all forms - told, performed, dramatised, written and sung, so that children would learn to love stories and reading, and their teachers would learn storytelling, creative writing and reading promotion techniques to apply in their classrooms.

One of the factors that can make or break a reading tent event is the weather. If it is cold, or windy, or if the skies open and rain pours down in a typical early summer storm in the Drakensberg, it can be a dreary failure. But if the skies are clear blue, if there isn't even a breath of air to flutter the tent flaps, then one is guaranteed great enthusiasm from the teachers, children and storytellers taking part.
We were incredibly lucky that 30 September 2005 was a gorgeous blue-sky day, and 200 school children and their teachers were treated to stories, songs and puppet shows in the five smaller tents erected around a very big main tent on the sports fields of Bergville Primary School.

While five teachers and five groups of 40 children each rotated every half-hour from tent to tent to hear stories, a large group of teachers attended a workshop on Reading Promotion and Creative Writing, given by Veena Gangaram, a teacher from Parkvale Primary in Durban.


Children were enthralled by the puppet shows	ELITS welcomes the opportunity to hold many happy events like this in other districts in future!

Storytellers came from our own Department, as well as from the KwaSukasukela Storytellers Group within Ethekwini Municipal Library Services, and from among very talented storytelling teachers from the district. Highlights were the stories by Gcina Mhlope, who held everyone spellbound with her talented performance.

Teachers as well as learners took home packs of books to read and share, and it was clear from their responses that everyone loves a good story. It is hoped that the event will encourage teachers to make use of stories in their classrooms, so that education is fun, as well as informative!

ELITS welcomes the opportunity to hold many happy events like this in other districts in future!

ELITS and storytelling

This working document is designed to form the basis of ELITS Storytelling handbook, which is to be workshopped with subject advisors, produced and distributed in 2006.

1 Introduction:

Storytelling and story reading fall very much within ELITS’ vision: “All learners in KwaZulu-Natal are information literate and have lifelong learning skills enabling them to live as responsible and informed citizens.” This vision in turn is informed by Goal One of the Department’s MSP. The aims of Goal One are “to provide high quality, relevant education to all its learners, regardless of age, including ABET and FET, which will equip them with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to meet the challenges of the future.”

This document asserts that information literacy, lifelong learning skills and relevant education can be substantially achieved through the telling and reading of ‘stories’ in their widest definition and to their widest audience. Storytelling, far from being simply a form of entertainment or at best a form of ‘edutainment’, is here defined as a valuable teaching methodology applicable from pre-school to ABET level. To establish this tenet, current literacy teaching methodologies and the relevance of story telling, reading aloud and story creation in enhancing those methodologies will be examined. Also discussed is the important function of story creation – written, performed, recited, dramatised, sung – in creating meaning for learners of all ages. Curriculum delivery, it is argued here, can be facilitated by ‘stories’ at all school levels, and in all learning modes.

Finally, the role of the story in healing or bibliotherapy is examined against the background of poverty, disease , trauma and mental and physical abuse facing too many of our learners in KwaZulu-Natal today. Whether they are trained for it or not, many teachers in South Africa have had to assume the roles of counsellors, psychologists and surrogate parents in our classrooms, over and above their traditional functions. Teaching the creation, telling and writing of real-life stories can assist them in these new therapeutic roles, while giving children the comfort and assurance that they are not alone in their suffering.

2 A brief history:

Storytelling, one of the earliest forms of folk art, probably first consisted of simple chants that praised the dawn, expressed the joy of being alive, were used to ease the drudgery and boredom of laborious tasks, or to explain natural events such as lunar or solar eclipses, floods, earthquakes, drought. Later the storyteller became the community entertainer by combining stories with poetry, music, and dance and over the years, evolving into the group historian. This was the beginning of professional storytelling.

Storytelling during the Middle Ages was expanded into the art of the travelling troubadours who travelled from country to country and were as welcome in castles as they were in market places. They gathered news, conveyed the best tales, and learned the favourite stories in each region. Troubadours were well educated, able to incorporate knowledge of literature, astrology, medicinal plants, earth sciences and history into their tales. However the invention of moveable type and the development of the print and publishing industry led to reading replacing listening, and a decline in storytelling in Europe .

In recent decades there has been a renewed interest in the art of storytelling. Professional storytellers now tour the United States and Canada and storytelling conferences and festivals abound and attract wide audiences. Folklore stories such as myths, epics, legends, and fables continue to be favourites and modern stories have been gathered for publication and recital, sometimes adapted from books and other storytellers. Interestingly, colleges that teach only storytelling have lately opened in a number of countries.

(Adapted from World Book and http://42explore.com/story.htm)

3 Definitions:

At its simplest level storytelling is one person telling others of something. Stories can be of real events or can be made up, and are often part of our everyday conversations, spontaneous accounts of events we have witnessed or experienced. Formal storytelling, on the other hand, relies on the presentation to an audience of a prepared story, often one that has been written by someone else. Ellin Greene has called it "...an art...recreating literature by taking the printed words in a book and giving them life.” (World Book Encyclopaedia, 1993)

Folklorists find this definition unacceptable, however, since they are studying storytellers who have learned their stories orally. Anne Pellowski attempted to draft a definition acceptable to both the folklorist and the librarian-storyteller. She defines storytelling as: "the art or craft of narration of stories in verse/and or prose, as performed or led by one person before a live audience; the stories narrated may be spoken, chanted, or sung, with or without musical, pictorial, and/or other accompaniment and may be learned from oral, printed, or mechanically recorded sources; one of its purposes may be that of entertainment.” (World of Storytelling, accessed online)

In teaching today the story has acquired another dimension – that of education. “Stories provide opportunities for children to express their thoughts and to communicate what they know and think. Through stories they learn to make sense of their world and to express their feelings through language. They also learn more about the world and people around them, and they see similarities and differences between themselves and characters in stories”....... they learn to expand their creativity and imagination, and “develop good listening comprehension skills. This language skill is very useful in the classroom, where children need to understand what their teachers say.” (Machet & Pretorius, 2003)

In its widest educational definition, storytelling is multifaceted, including several activities and developing many essential learning areas and life skills:

Story reading (reading aloud, comprehension, listening skills, collaborative learning, experience of a variety of literary genres and styles)

Story creation (telling, writing, recreating, transcribing from traditional or contemporary oral histories, editing skills, self-evaluation, handicrafts)

Story production (writing in a variety of styles and genres, translating, printing, publishing, cooperative learning)

Story performance (dramatisation, role-play, singing, dancing, arts & culture, life situation enactment, self-actualisation, self-esteem, empathy and respect for other cultures)

What makes storytelling so powerful as a learning medium is that learning experiences are immediate and personal, not vicarious as they would be through a textbook-teacher-centred learning situation. Each learning ‘platform’ leads children to the next – as in reading stories leads naturally to writing, producing and performing stories, in a natural sequence of learning experiences. What is really exciting about this methodology is that it is adaptable to all learning areas in the curriculum – from Languages to Life Skills to the Sciences.

Storytelling is a critical tool for encouraging a love of reading and writing.

Storytelling is indeed powerful. It provides the foundation for learning. Storytelling teaches students to listen actively and analytically, improves verbalisation skills, increases imagination and visualisation skills, and increases comprehension and retention skills. As teachers know, listening is the basis for all language skills: talking is learned by listening, reading is based on verbal language, writing is based on reading. Without the building block of listening, teachers are building without a firm foundation. And once students have listened to a story and used that story to create their own, they become anxious to write them down.

These positive educational features will become more apparent in the detailed discussion of each aspect given below.

4 Stories in school:

4.1 Story reading

This includes reading aloud, comprehension, listening skills, collaborative learning, experience of a variety of literary genres and styles. “Storybook reading helps children to become knowledgeable about the nature of written language and the comprehension process (the way in which we construct meaning from the printed page). With this background, children tend to learn to write more easily and quickly than children who lack this kind of exposure, and they develop a positive attitude to books and reading.”

4.2 Story creation

This includes activities such as telling, writing, recreating, transcribing from traditional or contemporary oral histories, editing skills, self-evaluation, handicrafts.

4.3 Story production

Production of stories offers practical experiences in writing in a variety of styles and genres, translating, printing, publishing, cooperative learning.

Examples of related activities:

Build a Story Collection. Collect stories from family, friends, books and Internet sources. Build a database that includes your story source (book title, author, publisher or date and the name of person you heard the story from). Include an outline of the story; think in terms of scenes. Note the story theme. List and describe the setting and characters. Record the key phrases that you want to use. Research the background of the each story, the country it is from, historical background, etc. [Senior Phase]

4.4 Story performance

Story performance means that learners are offered opportunities to experience for themselves story dramatisation, role-play, singing, dancing, arts & culture, life situation enactment, self-actualisation, self-esteem, empathy and respect for other cultures.

Examples of activities:

Tell a Story. Learn all that you can about the art of storytelling. Start with ideas from the website http://www.healingstory.org/home.html or from http://www.storyarts.org/

If you are getting a story from a book, read it aloud before deciding whether to adapt it for telling. Start out with a short, simple story. Choose one that you like. Practice in front of a mirror; pay attention to your stance and gestures. Practice by recording your story; listen carefully to your voice mannerisms. Practice on videotape; experiment with pacing and look for ineffective gestures and distractions. Try telling the story to a friend. Listen for feedback; evaluate it critically. Time the story; see which parts need to be told faster and where you need to slow down. Don't rush the delivery, but also don't let it run too long. [Senior Phase; sources for ideas would be printed for those who do not have Internet access]

Start a Storytelling/Story reading Club

Find other people in your school or neighbourhood that are interested in storytelling. Make use of the ReadRight supplement’s outline on how to start a Book Club to make your badges, set up your Club structures, and so on. Ask your Teacher/Principal to allow you time to perform or tell or read your Club’s stories in class time, English lessons, School Assemblies or at annual Readathons. A useful website for ideas on this activity is The Kids’ storytelling club , to be found at http://www.storycraft.com/

Bibliography

Healing Story Alliance , 2005. Accessed onlinehttp://www.healingstory.org/home.html

Machet,MP & Pretorius, EJ, 2003. Helping your child become a reader .

Claremont : New Africa Books. ISBN 1-86928-348-1

Storytelling defined , 2004. Accessed online http://42explore.com/story.htm

Salans, Molly, 2004. Storytelling with children in crisis.

London : Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 1 84310 745 7

World Book Encyclopaedia , 1993. Chicago : World Book Inc. ISBN 0-7166-6693-6

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