Storytelling is something that I do quite often. I love telling stories. But, frankly, my kids get bored after the same storytelling style time and again. So, I decided to change it up.
For Story Roulette, you will need large paper and markers. I have a deskless classroom so I get the big butcher paper from the office and make my kids sit on the floor. Because they are on the floor, markers work much better than colored pencils (which just rip through the paper). However, you could also do this with a sheet of white paper and two partners at a desk.
You will also, obviously, need a story. This works best with stories that can be told in small chunks. You don’t want to be saying more than a sentence or two at a time. That being said, I have used Story Roulette to read a chapter from a book and to tell the legend of El Silbón.
In Story Roulette, students need to be in groups. You can determine the size of the groups. I never like to have more than 4 as the bigger the group, the less each person in it seems to participate. I have done this as well with just partners, but I find that 3 seems to be the magic number.
So, this is how Story Roulette works:
- Students (or teacher) form their groups, get their materials, and number off. Teach assigns each group a letter
- Teacher says a sentence of the story, repeating it multiple times (I like to walk around the room as I do this)
- Students draw what is happening in the sentence (Depending on the participation of the class, I sometimes make each student have a different color so I can see that they are all participating). Teacher continues to repeat the sentence as students draw.
- Teacher says a number. The person with that number in the group now has to say the sentence the teacher has been continuously repeating to their group.
- Teacher now says a letter. The group with that letter repeats the sentence as a group to the rest of the class.
- Repeat until the story is over.
After every 6 sentences or so I like to pause and have students retell the entire story in their group.
This activity often takes two days and can seem to move slowly, but the students are getting so many repetitions. They are hearing the words and phrases, and using them as well, multiple times in the course of one class.
When the story is over, I take pictures of their work. Then I can pull it up later to review the story or to do other activities with it. They are often proud of their picture (even, or maybe especially, when they are bad). Most importantly, this activity is FUN. They are working together, drawing, on the floor, and learning without really thinking about it.
I am sure that there are many ways to modify this activity, so if you have any ideas, comment below. Let’s collaborate!
