Who’s Listening? A Conversation about Storytelling in the Classroom and Student Identity

Micaela Blei and Onnesha Roychoudhuri

A little bit about Micaela and Onnesha

Micaela is the former Director of Education for The Moth and former third grade teacher who has told stories, taught storytelling workshops and hosted shows around the world. Has her doctorate in Education with a focus on storytelling and identity. Two-time Moth storytelling champion.

Onnesha is a writer and educator with over 15 years of experience working at the intersection of storytelling and social justice. Focuses on how we choose to articulate our identities.

Debunking the belief that the power of storytelling is not part of every aspect of our lives.

Sometimes it’s not time for a story but the way that we understand the world is in a narrative way.
There is something very valuable about authentic connection and letting yourself be seen and seeing others. Storytelling is a direct line to being in the room together.
Story is how we navigate the world and informs our sense of who we are and how we navigate the world. Story within the classroom is all about context.

How does storytelling have an impact on identity?

Sharing your story helps you learn by saying, making sense of our worlds. Storytelling IS making identity, it’s a tool for it.
If storytelling helps create identity, the space that you create for storytelling becomes critical.
One way that we can create space for storytelling is to allow an emergent idea of what a good story is. We must move beyond that teacher-created rubric. The purpose of a story is to be best understood. Push the power of deciding what a good story is back on the class.
Build autonomy into the classroom space. We are all already authorities in different ways when it comes to storytelling.

Create a community agreement.
Ask, “What makes a good story to you?”
Ask the storyteller, “How was that?” to gauge what feedback they want. Rather than just launching into what feedback you want to give them. Creates Metacognition and self awareness.

Consent and autonomy are important when telling personal stories.
Social drafting is how we tell and revise stories in life. We do very sophisticated editing when we retell a story based on how the listener reacted and how we felt after telling the story.
Practicing storytelling without writing it out can be hard but rewarding.
Sometimes asking the storyteller “How was that?” can really surprise you and creates a space to check in with yourself and teaches us as listeners how to be there for the storyteller.

How can storytelling be infused into teaching?

Personal storytelling in the classroom is not one size fits all. There is a huge range of ways you can be using these tools.

The high stakes storytelling shows are almost dangerous because they make us equate those high stakes stories with quality. You can tell high quality stories without being deeply personal. “There’s no perfect way to tell a story, there’s your way.” Micaela Blei.
Incorporate aspects of storytelling into your teaching or PD.
Allow people to bring their authentic selves. Allow voices about what you’re learning into the room.
Storytelling exercise: Try and pitch a story concisely and clearly.

Practical ways to use storytelling in the classroom.

Use storytelling to help shape the way that people listen to each other.
Often, we project what we think is good on other people’s work. We need to shift the focus to helping the person achieve their goals rather than helping the person “make it better”.
One-minute scene exercise:

Think of a place that means a lot to you and take one minute to describe that place.
Everyone else’s job is to listen for what they see most vividly.
This tells the storyteller what effect their story has on the audience.
The storyteller can then use that feedback to reflect on their story and revise it to make it come across in the way they want.

Morning meetings can provide an amazing opportunity for small shares. Build in “two questions and a comment” for the listeners.
Stories that we aren’t saying:

Have students read a passage from a text and ask “Who are we not hearing from that we also impacte?” “What stories are we not hearing?”

“I used to be but now I am” exercise (credit to Kenneth Koch’s “Rose, where did you get that red?”)

Have students tell their version of their story then have someone else design the movie or the movie preview. They decide the type of movie and cast.

How does storytelling and podcasting fit in the classroom?

Use storytelling tools like the ones mentioned above to build a podcast episode.
The pieces that you use to produce a podcast are similar to how you would tell a narrative well.
Marry the suspense and mystery of the serial podcasting idea with academic content. “What will happen to the potato???”
Choosing your audience is a huge part of storytelling and transfers to creating a podcast.
A podcast lets us decide how we want our story to come out and becomes a way that we get to control the storytelling in a new way.
Podcasting helps us emphasize oral storytelling which is a huge part of our history.
Podcasting is a great option for students to show what they know.

“PowerPoint Roulette”

An improv show co-founded by Darren Solomon where people present random PowerPoint slides from publically available presentations. Each slide is on a completely different topic and totally random.
The game evens the playing field because the expectation is that you are going to fail and it’s going to be fun.
Have students do it as a team for them to play off of each other.

What can we do to help students use their voices to change the world?

It’s all about creating space for students to cultivate their voices and understand their voices are powerful.
Build in spaces in the pivotal spaces in students’ lives for them to share their voice.
Set up opportunities so students feel that the people there are there to support them in their storytelling.
In storytelling we become better story listeners.
Help students place themselves in the world and allow storytelling to become a frame for understanding identity, with authenticity and empathy.
Shift the focus for students from “What should I say” and “What am I supposed to say?” to “What do I want to say?” and “What do I need to say?”