Storytelling definition12/3/2023 When done well, the craft of oral storytelling actually produces oral literature good oral stories are verbal art, but deeply entrenched ethnocentric and elitist biases have established an image of them as formless, simple, and plebeian (Bauman, 1986, p. The performance aspect of oral storytelling adds an extra layer to the already complex act of narration found in genres more familiar to the classroom, such as memoir. Strong storytellers utilize dramatic and comedic timing, their audience’s reactions, and vocal characterization to bolster their performance. Even if a storyteller uses the same words as are found on paper, the story is transformed when lifted into talk and experienced in each other’s presence” (Kuyvenhoven, 2009, p. “Telling and listening to a story is not the same thing as reading or writing it. Oral storytelling is different from personal narrative writing such as memoir or autobiography in that it is told in front of a live audience (of one or more), it involves at least some improvisation, and it utilizes the extra dimensions of dialect, vocal shadings, audience response, and accompanying facial and body movements (Simons, 1990). As Rosen (1988) observes, narratives are not always a “neat match between experience and a sequence of clauses” (p. Labov (1972) explains that narratives are not told in the same order as the events that are detailed instead, narrators or storytellers recapitulate the past and reconfigure the events to imbue significance. This seemingly technical way of understanding narrative or story is useful for understanding how narrative operates. William Labov (1972) describes narrative as “one method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events which (it is inferred) actually occurred” (p. However, a story is more than just a string of events. ![]() Genette (1982) states, “One will define narrative without difficulty as the representation of an event or of a sequence of events” (p. After all, we all recognize a story when we hear it. ![]() By sharing stories-and allowing students to share theirs-teachers create a community of learners that might just overcome some of the boundaries that keep people apart or alone in the world of school” (p. Johnson & Freedman (2001) believe, as we do, that “all elements that are vital to creating a strong community of learners can be found within the people who share classroom space each day. Oral storytelling units bank on many students’ natural desire to share stories from their lives. Listening to a story impacts one’s own narrative identity (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000), which is an important reason to give class time to storytelling-its potential power to connect our students to each other and therefore positively affect our classroom relationships. One perquisite of this gap-playing in listening to an oral story (as opposed to reading a written memoir, for example) is that the interaction takes place live, before the teller’s very eyes. The audience members are active witnesses, participating in constructing the narrative and playing in its gaps (Richter, 1996). Stories don’t just convey information they “demonstrate relationships between tellers, hearers, characters, and others” (Shuman, 1986, p. ![]() Our brains seem wired for narrative, making us naturally receptive to it we use stories to make sense of the world and to share that understanding with others (Rose, 2011), so telling personal stories becomes a way for us to both define and project ourselves. In fact, anything we experience that does not get structured narratively does not get remembered (Kahneman, 2010). Storytelling is part and parcel of human socialization-a tool for making us known, both to ourselves and to others. “Insofar as we account for our own actions and for the human events that occur around us principally in terms of narrative, story, drama, it is conceivable that our sensitivity to narrative provides the major link between our own sense of self and our sense of others in the social world around us” (Bruner, 1986, p. Humans have such a long history of using storytelling to connect to one another that it seems like an instinctual motivation and desire. This is also true when using storytelling in the classroom. ![]() The definition of storytelling and how it is being used has changed.
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