A Story Like the Wind / During Reading / Digging Deeper /
White Stallion Storytelling
Identifying key moments and preparing an oral storytelling for an audience or recording.
Lesson length: 1 session
Lesson from A Story Like the Wind series
Required reading: Whole book
Text potential
- Narrative features: Plot: key events
Strategies used
- Comprehension: Summarising
- Storytelling
Purpose
The benefits of oral storytelling are numerous. Expressly studies point to the value in providing opportunities for self-expression, identification with story characters, empathic understanding of self and others and bi-directional communication.
In this lesson, children are encouraged to retell the story in their own words and only use direct quotations for effect. Conveying the emotion and the meaning of the tale is far more important than memorising the text. When children are freed from memorising, it gives space for their voices to emerge.
Above all, this should be an enjoyable, collaborative experience.
Preparation
- Provide large sheets of paper A2 or A3.
- Download and print the story cards.
Process
Distribute the story cards and large sheets of paper to members of the group and ask them to prepare to retell the section of the story that they have been given.
Ask them to draw and annotate their image with key words or phrases taken from the text.
Next, add essential lines of dialogue.
Gather in a circle to retell the story.
After telling the story, encourage the children to reflect on the experience.
- What did you enjoy about listening to other children telling the story?
Extension
Prepare and rehearse your retelling of the story of The White Stallion as an audio adaptation.
- Who will narrate the story?
- Who will play the different characters in the story?
You may want to include some sound effects, but don’t overdo it, as the sound effects can be distracting, and they should only be used to assist the storytelling. You might want to include some percussion instruments between each main event to segment the narrative.
Choose some appropriate introductory music. Read out the credits at the end.
Final reflection
- Why are stories shown to be important in A Story Like the Wind?
In pairs, use the Story Cards to order the events and reconstruct the story. Alternatively, complete a set of blank cards after identifying the main events in the story.
Key vocabulary
adaptation
Resources
Story Cards
Contributors
Nikki Gamble
Director, Just Imagine
Nikki has worked extensively in schools across the UK and internationally. She is the author of Exploring Children’s Literature (4th edit) (2019) and co-author of Guiding Readers (2016) which was awarded the UKLA Academic Book of the Year Award 2017. Nikki is KS2 reading advisor and series consultant for Oxford University Press and content creator for the Oxford School Improvement and Oxford Owl websites. Nikki is Associate Consultant at the University of London, Institute of Education and Honorary Fellow at the University of Winchester