Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Chapter Reaction: Story

Please comment if you would like to share your overall impression/reaction to the chapter "Story."

9 comments:

  1. I am truly being inspired by this book!! I never thought about our lives in terms of stories, but it is so true. The things we remember most and that are most meaningful are those that are told in story form. My initial interst in storytelling actually began with my cousin, Diane Wolkstein, who is a well know story teller who lives in Grenwich Village. Then, my daughter took a storytelling class at her high school and began to ask our stories we remembered and she actually interviewed my mother by phone about her story. My daughter then had to write her own story and present it to the class.
    I love the idea of industry now turning to the old art of story telling to improve business.

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  2. We use "story" in middle school to introduce many topics from history. The "stories" are the explanations of nursery rhymes. i.e. "all the kings horse and all the kings men"...about a ruler who lost his throne despite the efforts of his soldiers... when we explain what the nursery rhymes mean before launching into a unit of study, the kids go "oh I get it" and, "this will make it so much easier to remember". The kids try to stump me by asking me to explain random nursery rhymes, so we often have to look them up!

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  3. Download Free MP3 Audiobooks from Barnes and Noble
    Francine Huff


    Barnes and Noble is offering free MP3 downloads of nine audiobooks. The audiobooks are short stories by authors that include The Babysitter's Code by Laura Lippman, Great Day: An Unabridged Story from Armegeddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut, and Merrano of the Dry Country by Louis L'Amour. Tom Sawyer is also available for the free download. The audiobooks can be listened to on any device that plays MP3s.

    The free downloads are only available at bn.com or its mirror sites. The offer ends at 2:59 a.m. Eastern Time on May 16.
    if you see this in time, have a few of the shorts stories for your ipod or other device. jill

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  4. hmmmm, the librarian in me seems t be obsessed with the topic of STORY, go figure! Check out http://googlelittrips.com/ It is broken down into grade bands. From the webssite:This site is an experiment in teaching great literature in a very different way. Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place... and so much more!

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  5. I have shared the Google Lit Trips site with the English teachers in my building. I think having students create a "Lit Trip" is a wonderful idea. I'm already laying the groundwork with my peer partner.

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  6. I was glad that there was as much emphasis in this section on "listening" as there was in "telling". I think, sometimes, that listening is the part that is most neglected. The example about doctors interrupting after twenty-one seconds is not just about doctors. How many of us have started relating an incident, and been "talked over" by someone who didn't have the time or patience to wait his turn? Time is an important factor here, it seems to me. Where time is money, or when time is limited by obligations or schedules, story is often sacrificed for expediency. Waht a shame. What a loss.

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  7. Loved this chapter!!! (Must be the English teacher in me). We truly do remember stories. I see this in the classroom every day. Try to teach a piece of "boring" curriculum and watch kids become disengaged; tell it to them as a story and every eye is on you waiting for you to weave the tale. No surprise that all kids seem to grab a piece of paper and write "forever" if you tell them to share a story that is inside their head; but ask them to reflect on a piece of nonfiction text and many will shut down and not be able to articulate their thoughts. A good story can truly change a life. I have personally experienced it and I have had students write me thank you notes after reading text in my class that changed them forever (i.e. To Kill a Mockingbird).

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  8. Students do seem to understand and relate better to information presented to them when given in the form of a story. Recently, I have begun sharing my personal experiences more with them when teaching and they seem to more readily grasp the concept being addressed in the lesson.

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  9. Stories are also important to me personally and as an art teacher. Humanities and culture are basically stories about people. Relationships are important and I think that we do understand each other and various cultures through the sharing of stories.

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