Storytelling and Critical Thinking.pdf

Storytelling and Critical Thnking

The reader response view of reading (Bleich, 1975; Rosenblatt, 1978) supports teaching for active learning and critical thinking, in three ways: 1) Readers must be active. Reader response theory tells us that the meaning of the text is created by the reader in conjunction with the words on the page. So the teacher encourages the reader to bring the work to life in her imagination. The reader should ask— What is the text making me see? How is the text making me feel? What is the text making me think of? What is the text making me experience? • • • •

2) Readers find language for human situations, emotions, and social relations. A text brings a “slice of life” into the classroom so readers can perceive it, and grow conscious aspects of it and learn names for those feelings and happenings. What is kindness? What is cruelty? What is manipulation? What is self-sacrifice? self-sacrifice? What is grace? What is valor? valor? What is coincidence? What is destiny? destiny? These qualities become conscious for young people when they read about situations in which they are demonstrated and are named in discussions. 3) Readers come to recognize that others see the same situations differently, but often for justifiable reasons. The process of meaning construction occurs not just with works o f literature, but in real life, too. Life is a text. Think of any school yard argument or family disagreement you have witnessed. Both Both parties may look at the same set of facts and interpret them differently, just as two young readers may construct different meanings from a work of literature. Reading a text together with others provides each reader a chance to test her interpretation of events against other readers’ interpretations. interpretations. Classrooms are usually safer places than most for comparing interpretation, especially when a caring teacher is present to help draw out students’ thoughts thoughts and the reasons behind them. them. When classrooms classrooms become interpretive communities students learn to think about their thinking, begin to think about others’ thinking, and become more tolerant of differences of opinion (Bleich, 1975).

These points all apply to told  stories,  stories, too. In practice, especially those students students with limited capacity to read in English may more easily engage in critical thinking about stories that are told to them, rather than ones they read themselves. Looking Closely at the Structure of Stories. Dramatic roles. Looking more closely at the structure of individual narratives shows how a story shapes readers’ reactions to it. From experience hearing and reading stories and watching media, readers construct what has been called a story grammar  (Stein  (Stein and Glenn; Mandler and Johnson): Johnson): a set of rules that help them make sense of who is doing what and what the actions mean. One version of a story grammar assigns roles to characters (Souriau, 1955; Temple, Martinez, and Yokota, 2003). A character in a story may be the hero or the protagonist, the person whose needs give rise to the actions in the story and with whom readers most strongly sympathize. Another character may serve as a rival, a person against whom the hero competes to get what he wants. Yet another character may be the helper, who supports the hero. Readers sense who is playing what role, and their loyalties are directed directed accordingly: they cheer the hero (and may forgive his aggression), they spurn the rival (and may give him little sympathy), and they appreciate the efforts of the helper (but don’t give her much consideration  beyond what she does does for the hero). Authors don’t often tell readers who is playing what role—readers intuit those judgments themselves. But once readers do assign characters to roles, their affections may be strongly shaped: once we decide that Jack is the hero of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” we cheer him through his adventures, and may forgive his thievery, and even murder. Once we cast the giant as the rival, we don’t much sympathize with him, even as he is robbed and killed. And once we think of the giant’s wife as a hero, we don’t give her another thought once she has helped Jack for the last time.

1

Characters as Stand-ins for Other People. Characters in stories have special meanings for us in our own lives. For example, we can say the story of “Cinderella” is about what happens when a deserving  but overshadowed young person like competes for recognition against over privileged people like Cinderella’s haughty stepsisters. Kate DiCamillo’s  Because of Winn Dixie is about what happens when a troubled child (Opal) who is searching for community reaches out to the people around her, who are also suffering and lonely, but powerless in their isolation. Cinderella and Opal are like many other people we know. We speak of “Cinderella” sports teams, who have these same attributes of being deserving but overlooked until one day they burst into glory. And many a youngest child, feeling that other siblings get all the breaks, has identified with Cinderella. Opal in  Because of Winn Dixie reminds us of Maniac Magee (in Louis Sachar’s book by that name) because Maniac, too, is a kid who lacks a normal support group and who ultimately creates community. In real life they both remind us a little bit of other peacemakers, like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King. But they also remind us of some children in dysfunctional families, who must do more than their fair share to make things right for the others in their surroundings. The dynamics of identifying characters with other characters works like this. We look at characters in stories horizontally and vertically. We look horizontally at the relationships between characters, and once we see who occupies the slots in those relationships, we look vertically at categories of  people like that. The horizontal dimension is akin to the grammar of a sentence, and the vertical dimension is akin to the parts of speech. This brings us back to the question of how stories have meaning for us. We can ask, of “Cinderella,” when do we feel overlooked and underappreciated? What do we do at those times to find relief? Especially if we don’t have fairy godmothers? And doubly especially if we don’t want to wait for a  prince to come calling? We recognize the problem presented in these stories and see if we find part of ourselves in those problems. Then we critique the solutions offered by the stories. If we don’t buy the story’s solution, then we can decide upon a better one. The Hero cycle. Stories abound of people who start out under-appreciated, and then are challenged to do something that requires strength and courage and that benefits other people, and reach some triumphant state by the end of the story.  Holes, Hoot!, Because of Winn Dixie, Harry Potter , and The Lord of the Rings follow this pattern. Joseph Campbell wrote a famous description of this kind of plot in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (2008). The plots of many hero stories are so similar, wrote Campbell, that they are telling the same story: the monomyth, or hero cycle. Campbell’s monomyth begins with an unlikely hero (not yet recognized as such) who resides at home, neglected, under-appreciated by those around. The hero hears a call to adventure. Sometimes it literally is a call, as when the hero is sent on a quest to find something that will eliminate a threat and restore order at home (Think of The Hobbit, or The  Lord of the Rings trilogy). Sometimes the quest is more figurative—the hero must survive an ordeal and

2

develop his own strength (as in  Hatchet ) or restore his family’s reputation (as in  Holes), or bring harmony to a community (as in Because of Winn Dixie). The hero must cross a threshold into a special place where the full range of her or his powers may  be at play, a place that Campbell calls the land of adventure. The threshold may be impossible to cross—  in myths and folktales, it will take magical aid for the passage to be possible. The hero may face and pass tests in order to gain (sometimes magical) assistance from a helper in order to cross this threshold. In “Jack and the Beanstalk” something of a joke is made of these tests, but they are enough to win magical aid for Jack in the form of beans from the helper, the strange little man that Jack meets on his way to market. Crossing the threshold into the land of adventure is serious business, though. In “Jack,” had it not been for those magical beans, no other-worldly beanstalk would have bridged the distance between earth and the sky,  just as few people idly make their way into Narnia, or NeverNeverland, or Oz, or Hogwarts. Once the hero has made it over into the land of adventure, he or she goes through a death-like experience. Campbell likens this to descending into the belly of the whale , recalling the story of Jonah from the Old Testament. Here a person’s childlike self dies away so the adult can be born. When the young  protagonist of the hero story emerges from the belly of the whale, he or she has adult-like powers. In “Jack and the Beanstalk” perhaps the Belly of the Whale is the copper cooking pot where he hides from the giant. The Belly of the Whale in “Hansel and Gretel” may be the witch’s house. The hero must prove himself or herself against a stern father figure. Is the young person capable of  being taken seriously as a hero? Only the ultimate test against the supreme authority figure will make decide the question. Campbell called this competition with the authority figure father atonement. At the height of the journey, the hero seeks a prize, a magic potion, a key that will have some  benefit to those who are waiting back on earth. The hero must win it or steal it, in a move that Campbell calls the elixir theft . In older stories and those derived from them the elixir, which means “medicine,” is often an actual item—the Holy Grail, the Golden Fleece, the magic hen and magic harp, the Firebird; or the sorcerer’s stone, or the Rings. In modern stories it may be something more abstract, like harmony and engagement among the people of Naomi, Florida, in  Because of Winn Dixie. Following the theft of the elixir the hero often has to make a dramatic escape or flight from the father figure, back across the threshold from the land of adventure into the real world, where the hero once again finds himself or herself at home. But, of course, when the hero is at home at the end of the story, unlike the  beginning—when the hero was all unrecognized potential, the hero is now a fully developed human being, with all of her or his talents expressed to their fullest. What value does knowledge of the monomyth have to those of us who want to discuss literature with children? The monomyth provides a ready means of making text-to-text comparisons.

Behavior and Rewards. People who worry about violence in the media point to the number of violent acts that not only go unpunished, and how many times those acts win for the perpetrators what they wanted. Critics correctly worry that this is a formula for influencing viewers: “The characters commit X deed, and get what they want. Therefore, young viewer, you should commit X deed to get what you want.”

But there is a more subtle formula at work in literature that children read, especially the traditional literature, where different kinds of characters get different results for different kinds of actions. In stories like “Cinderella” or “Beauty and the Beast,” for example, it is clear that mean get different rewards from women for the same actions. Consider this chart:

3

Male Beauty Beauty’s sisters Beast Cinderella Cinderella’s sisters Cinderella’s prince Sleeping Beauty Sleeping Beauty’s Prince Snow White Snow White’s stepmother Snow White’s prince

No No Yes No No Yes No Yes No No Yes

Actively sought what they wanted? No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes

Got what they wanted? Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

You get the idea. The “yes-yes-yes’s” are all successful: they’re the males who go after what they want. So are the “No-no-yes’s:” they’re they females who don’t go after what they want. The ones who fail, and who are often horribly punished, are the “No-yes-no’s:” the females who go after what they want. That’s a no-no in Western folktales. Constructing a chart like this with students can be a helpful exercise—but only if there is plenty of time for the students to question whether these patterns make sense in their own lives. Reading for Structured Opposites. A useful way of interpreting stories is to look for their contrasts, ask what things are similarly contrasted in other stories, and then find parallel contrasts and tensions in our own lives (Levi Strauss, 1970) A method for doing that is called reading for structured opposites. A folktale works very well for introducing this method and could be taught like this: 1. Ask the students to think of the two characters in the story they are reading who are most unlike each other or most opposed to each other. For example, if the story is “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the two characters might be Jack and the giant. 2. Write the names of those two characters at the heads of two columns (see Figure). Ask the students to come up with contrasting descriptive words about those two characters. That is, ask for a word that describes one character; then ask for an opposite word that describes the other character. To take “Jack and the Beanstalk,” those might be Jack and the giant, obviously. Let’s begin with Jack and the giant. What words would we use to describe each of them? Jack The giant Young Old Poor Rich Small Huge “Plucky” Dull Seems weak Seems strong “On his way up” “Over the hill”

Each of these columns—a bundle of features with a name at the top—can be called a category. We will do more with the categories in a moment. The dynamics between these characters can be called a  relationship. In this case, it’s a relationship of rivalry—Jack wants what the giant has, and the giant wants to keep what he has and eliminate Jack as a threat (eat him, if possible).  Now who else do we know who could occupy the same category with Jack, or occupy the other category with the giant—paradigms which are partially defined by their relationship with the other—in this case, the rivalry of the young, poor, under-privileged one who is on his way up, and the older, bigger, richer one who is desperately clinging on to his or her privilege? We will nominate a few and write them in the outer columns to the left of Jack and to the right of the giant.

4

Others like Jack David Marty Peter Pan Robin Hood

Jack

Young Poor Small “Plucky” Seems weak “On his way up”

The giant

Old Rich Huge Dull Seems strong “Over the hill”

Others like the giant Goliath Judd Travers Captain Hook Sheriff of Nottingham

It now seems that Jack and the giant are actually more than mere characters in a story. They are bundles of features with names attached—characters who remind us of other characters. Who are other candidates who share these paradigms, and occupy the same categories with each other?

Others Like Jack

Others Like Jack

In Real Life Serfs Slaves People Workers

In The Arts David Marty Peter Pan Robin Hood

Children

Jack Young Poor Small “Plucky” Seems weak “On his way up”

The Giant Old Rich Huge Dull Seems strong “Over the hill”

Others Like Giant In The Arts Goliath Judd Travers Captain Hook Sheriff of  Nottingham

Others Like Giant In Real Life  Nobles Owners Tyrants Sweatshop managers Bullies

 From Temple, Ogle, Crawford, and Freppon (2011). All Children Read, 3 rd  Edition. Boston: Allyn and  Bacon.

5

On Learning a Story After you find a story you want to share, here are some ways to learn it. 1. READ THROUGH THE STORY SEVERAL TIMES : a. Once to get the over-all plot. What’s the setting? What’s the  problem? What’s the sequence of actions? Where’s the climax? What’s it like at the end?  b. Once to think of the point of it : What kind of story is this? Is it a joke? A cautionary tale? A mystery? A love story? A ghost story? Once you identify the nature and tone of your story, how will you match the language of your telling to it? Will you be laughing and joking? Will you be creepy? Magisterial? Off-hand and ironic? c. Once to get to know the characters. Think about each one. What motivates him. How she holds herself. How his voice sounds. What she does with her hands as she talks. d. Once to learn any repeated phrases. Are there parts that you want your audience to expect, maybe join in on? Find these and memorize them, so you can say them, just so. e. Once to learn the beginning and end. Memorize these. Make sure you get a crisp way of getting into the story, and a clear and decisive way to end it. 2. PREPARE A SET OF NOTE CARDS : a. One for the opening words —you want to say these exactly.  b. One for each event (there will be many of these) c. One for the repeated phrases or chants (Insert these in the order where they appear) d. Once for the ending-- you want to say these words exactly, too. 3. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Using your cards, practice telling the story to your roommate, someone else’s roommate, someone in this class. And when you first tell it for an audience, you may keep your note cards in your lap. Just for security. Sources:

Hamilton and Weis (2005). Children Tell Stories, 2nd Edition. Richard C. Owen. Lipman (1999).  Improving Your Storytelling. August House. MacDonald (1993). Storyteller’s Start Up Book. August House. Temple, Martinez, and Yokota (2010). Children’s Books in Children’s Hands, 4th  Edition. Boston: Pearson/ Allyn and Bacon. Temple, Ogle, Crawford, and Freppon (2011). Chapter 10: “Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy.”  All Children Read, 3rd Edition. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

6