“You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that."
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
Lately I have been thinking a lot about how important storytelling is to the learning process, and perhaps because it is on my mind, I keep finding different variations of this theme everywhere.
I saw shades of it in this review of Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "David and Goliath," which argues that Gladwell ticks off academics because he is a storyteller rather than a scientist. I see it in the controversy that erupted online over David Dobbs' Aeon article, "Die, Selfish Gene, Die," which calls for re-examination of the "selfish gene story" as the primary way of imagining and explaining the current findings in evolutionary biology. I saw it in the commentaries on the 50 year anniversaries of the deaths of C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy which discuss their importance through the lens of the narratives we have created about their lives and about their deaths since 1963.
I see it a lot in recent theories and practices coming out of psychology and neuroscience, such as:
- Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga explaining how our brain organizes memories into plausible stories in this three-and-a-half minute video, "Your Storytelling Brain" from Big Think.
- Psychiatrist and author, Dr. Dan Siegel, explaining how helping children to form a narrative about emotional events can calm them down by connecting both sides of the brain (kidsinthehouse).
- Dr. Daniel Kaheman describing how "our remembering self is a storyteller," and how this impacts our sense of happiness, in his TedTalk, The riddle of experience vs. memory
I'll come back and try to connect some of these themes and ideas in a later post. (Maybe I'll try to weave them into a narrative!) But first, let me tell you about some storytelling that I've witnessed a little bit closer to home...
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If you are looking for a good book to read over the holidays, you really should check out this new novel by my friend, Sharon Skretting. Not sure if it is your style? You can try a few chapters for free and see if you like it. I think you just might.
But whether this story is your kind of thing or not, I think that you should pay attention to what Sharon was trying to do if you are interested in how people learn.
You see, besides being a talented writer, Sharon is a veteran elementary school teacher, and a very good one. She wrote this novel while teaching full-time, and she shared each of the chapters with her class as she was writing them. I can assure you that the class absolutely ate it up! Of course, her students learned a lot of skills and techniques for writing and a lot about the art of storytelling from their teacher's example and from participating in that process. That is quite an accomplishment. But Sharon's goal was even more ambitious. She also thought:
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| Sharon Skretting |
It is no small feat to create a novel which stands on its own merits as an entertaining story but which also embeds curriculum outcomes and weaves them in naturally. But if you get a chance to check out Sharon's Quest Teaching blog, you'll find that she wants to do even more than that. She also wants to show you how to use her novel to teach those outcomes and how to create engaging quests for you students. You'll find that "Quest Teaching" is more than just a blog name or a "brand;" it is a unique pedagogical method. And you will discover that she is passionate about spreading that method.
At the core of her Quest Teaching method is the idea that narratives create connections. They help the reader to make connections with characters and concepts. They help students to make connections with each other and with people and cultures around the world. To reinforce these connections, Sharon uses diverse teaching strategies such as projects, group activities, technology, and arts integration, but it is the story that helps to tie it all together.
Of course, there is nothing new about using literature to teach concepts or about doing group work or using project-based teaching. Sharon acknowledges the importance of using tried and true methodologies. But there is something unique about the way this story was specifically created to weave those elements together, and there is something special about the way the novel gives a meaning or purpose to the learning by making it a "quest." Sharon had tried to do that sort of thing in the past but could only take the idea so far without a book specifically written with that purpose in mind. Since she couldn't find a novel that met that criteria, she decided to write it herself. It has been such a success that she is already working on a sequel!
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I learned something too, from talking to Sharon and watching her work through the process. It was tough, at first, for her to explain to me what she was doing and why, but I could tell that she really needed to talk it through. As the year, and the novel, progressed, so did her vision of what she was trying to accomplish. I got to hear the "story" of her Quest Teaching philosophy develop alongside the creation of "The Jewel of Peru." It may have been a different kind of storytelling than the novel she was writing, but it was just as much about the formation of a coherent narrative. And you know what? I was captured by her enthusiasm and got caught up in that narrative. That is why I had to share it here on my blog. A good story can do that to you.In case you are wondering, no - I haven't finished reading her novel yet. I have lots of excuses: I have been busy; I wanted to wait until I had my (signed) paperback version; I already know how it ends (she had to run it past someone!); I had a blog post or two to finish. You know the excuses. But Christmas holidays are coming, and soon I'll have the time to sit down with a good book or two, and I know just which book to start with!
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