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Forgotten Skills, Living Memory:Using Storytelling in the ClassroomFiona Y. Collins aa Faculty of Education , Roehampton Institute , London,UKPublished online: 07 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Fiona Y. Collins (1996) Forgotten Skills, Living Memory: UsingStorytelling in the Classroom, Early Child Development and Care, 116:1, 3-10, DOI:10.1080/0300443961160102

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Forgotten Skills, Living Memory:Using Storytelling in the Classroom

FIONA Y. COLLINS

Faculty of Education, Roehampton Institute, London, UK

(Received 1 October 1995)

When I am working as a storyteller, using traditional tales, there are two questionswhich are put to me over and over again by listeners. The question which is mostoften asked by children: "Is that a true story?" and the one which is most oftenasked by adults: "How do you remember the stories?"

This paper is framed by these two questions and attempts to respond to them.This may not answer the broader question of how to use traditional stories in theclassroom, but I hope that it will address some of the issues around why I believethey are so valuable in education.

If education can be briefly denned, then I feel a reasonable definition wouldbe that it is about exploring truth, and about learning how to learn — by whichI intend coming to understand how one's own mind functions and how to use itas effectively as possible. Storytelling is by no means the only way of addressingthese two aims, and many teachers who would cheerfully subscribe to them wouldnever consider using traditional tales with their pupils to meet these goals, butfor reasons which I will outline below I believe that traditional stories, and indeedoral methods of learning and understanding in general, are particularly valuabletools for teachers and educationalists.

To support my position I will be drawing on information collected fromprofessional storytellers working in England at the present time who are part ofthe storytelling revival which has been developing in this country over the lastten years. I am undertaking research into the contribution of traditional talesto the child's developing understanding of the world, and have distributed aquestionnaire to fifty storytellers, including some of the most respected namesin the storytelling world, asking about their working methods and also for theirviews on the ways in which children work with stories. Their full, helpful andoften lyrical responses furnish a unique perspective on the role of traditionalstorytelling in education, both now and in earlier, mainly oral societies. Myresearch into academic scholarship on early storytelling and oral forms ofcommunication, particularly in Ancient Greece and Rome, has uncovered somefascinating parallels between ancient and modern storytellers, especially in the

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ways they work on stories to take ownership of them and prepare them for telling.Memory systems, patterning and visualisation are all characteristic features of thework of both ancient and modern storytellers, which I will describe in more detaillater in this paper. The possibilities for teachers of children who are still in a purelyoral culture, either because of their age or maturity, or because they are havinglearning difficulties in the field of literacy, will, I hope, become clear.

However, I intend to begin not with oral techniques, but rather with thehuman search for understanding which sparks the child's question "Is that a truestory?" I shall investigate the significance of this question in the child's attemptsto understand why the world is as it is. There are two aspects which I wish toexplore briefly. The first is the concept of the truth of the story, and the secondis the notion of being true to the story. Let me begin with the truth of the story,which is the usual focus of the child's curiosity.

Children are particularly vulnerable, because of their lack of experience, to theneed to verify truth by referring to an authority for judgment. For the youngchild this authority is usually the parent figure, soon joined by teachers and othersignificant adults in the child's life. Only much later do books, encyclopaedias andother written texts become possible sources of verification, and these are, in thelast resort, only more institutionalised manifestations of individual authority. Tosome extent, we are all, children and adults alike, forced to accept much of ourknowledge on trust, as so many of the things we 'know' can never be personallyverified; for instance, that the earth is round, or that it has a molten core (MichaelPolanyi, 1978). However, children often find it hard to understand that scientificand religious explanations of why the world is as it is may be only relative, ratherthan absolute truth. To explore stories which offer alternative explanations forwhy the sun is in the sky or why the sea is salty enables children to see thatthroughout the history of humans in the world, and everywhere in the world,people have been developing their own explanations for these phenomena, justas the child him/herself does, and that scientific explanations are only the mostrecent of these creation stories, and not much more verifiable as true than thelegends and myths of the world's cultures. As the storyteller Sharon Jacksties writesin her responses to the storytellers' questionnaire:

"One of the things that most interests me about children's responses (to stories)is the way in which they use stories to deepen and question their understandingof reality. And to see the way in which storytelling develops their own senseof subjectivity. Stories have often promoted discussions about scientific andother kinds of reality being simultaneously valid. Children make stories 'theirown'... primarily by being able to relate them to their own experience and othersources of information."

For children who are so afraid of making a mistake that they hardly ever beginanything, and frequently destroy their own work because they cannot achieve theperfection they have prescribed for themselves, the opportunity to explore thenotion of relative truth, and in particular the idea that there is more than one right

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STORYTELLING IN THE CLASSROOM 5

answer to many questions — and even more questions to which the right answercan never be known, but only guessed at — this experience of exploring differentversions of truth through creation stories and myths is a helpful, constructive andenlightening one. As Amy Douglas writes:

"I find if children are given an answer in a story that they have to think aboutthen it is taken in more than if they are just told straight out and it goes inthrough one ear and out through the other — a story may not be true but itdoesn't mean there isn't a lot of truth in it."

The other aspect of truth in traditional stories to which I now wish to turn myattention is the idea of being true to the story, and the experience of telling andretelling traditional tales in the classroom. Michael Dacre writes:

"Children love stories and work very easily with them."

Storytelling taps into the quality of absorption with which children, even thevery active or disruptive, can respond to a story, and the strong connection whichchildren can make with a particular story is evident to anyone who has beensubject to the pleading 'again, again' of the child who can endure, and even thriveon, countless retelling of a favourite story or rhyme. The experience of workingwith a story by retelling it is a perfect opportunity for such a child to repeat andinternalise even more intensely the well-loved and rehearsed story. Lenny Alsopdescribes this combination in the following terms:

"Generally children are naturally endowed with curiosity, mental energy andthe possibility of vigorous response. The oral forms of stories are well suited tothese qualities."

However, the notion of being true to the story does not entail parroting itword for word, or indeed preclude making fundamental changes to the settingor characters of a story when retelling it. Being true to the story is very muchabout taking ownership of the story and creating one's own version of it. Here thebest analogy is with the actor's different experiences in working with a scriptedor an improvised piece of theatre. The scripted piece requires reenactment ofthe playwright's words as accurately as possible, whereas an improvised piece isrecreated anew each time it is performed — not from scratch, for the actor drawson the mood and events from previous performances, but with spontaneity andthe possibility of reflecting the unique circumstances in which it is performed.So it is with the retelling of a traditional story: although the 'bare bones' of thestory, its narrative structure, are set in the storyteller's mind, the quality of thetelling, its pace, imagery and mood are varied with each telling. This freedom ofself-expression within the secure framework of the narrative structure of the storyprovides valuable scaffolding for the child's own work. As Susanna Steele writes:

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"They need to know it's OK to tell a story the way they've heard it as well as toknow they can change it."

The 'truth' of the story, the telling and interpretation that have the ringof authenticity, will be different for each teller in different circumstances. Theknowledge that this is so is both helpful and affirming for children, who can usethe storyteller's tale as a model on which to base their own personal version of thenarrative, in the quest to find their own voice. After all, as Richard Walker writes:

"Each child is an individual and has his/her own unique perception of the story—just as they have of the world about them. This uniqueness is very importantin story work."

The knowledge that being true to the story in the telling does not precludechanging it or telling it in one's own personal style is a valuable experience forchild and adult alike.

But exactly how does one go about retelling traditional stories? Or, in thewords of my second pivotal question: "How do you remember the stories?" Thefascination with the powers of memory which is expressed through this questionis an enduring feature of human culture which is epitomised today in the 'smallads' for patent memory improvement systems, and which has been traced backby researchers to at least Greek and Roman times. The question is one which Iraised with today's storytellers in my questionnaire and which elicited full anddetailed answers. There was, however, a significant degree of consensus betweenrespondents about their techniques, and what struck me as significant was thesimilarity between the methods of modern storytellers and the information wehave about the methods of Homer and the storyteller-poets of Ancient Greece, andCicero and the rhetors and orators of Rome. The methods used by contemporarystorytellers to remember stories and make them their own fall, in the main, intotwo key categories: the use of patterning of sound and rhythm, and the visualisingof key images.

I will offer some examples of each category from the working methods ofmodern storytellers, and then go on to make brief reference to research on Homerand Cicero. The relevance of all this to the modern child in the classroom may notbe immediately obvious. I would, however, like to propose an analogy between theskills of the preliterate child, of whatever age and ability, as defined above, andthe working methods used by the expert storyteller, of whatever time or culture,but particularly from truly oral cultures, those in which reading and writing wereunknown or not in general use. I believe that there are parallels to be drawn whichcould be valuable in education. Too often we fail to value or simply do not identifythe oral skills which the preliterate child brings to school, and our principal aim asteachers is to induct the child into the 'literacy club' (Frank Smith's term) as quicklyas possible — and the older they get the more urgent this becomes. But I believethat we are in danger of ignoring valuable oral skills on which the child could buildand which could provide scaffolding for the skills of literacy as they are acquired

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— especially skills of language and memory. Indeed we devote very little attentionat all to teaching or discussing mnemonic skills: I am not advocating learning byrote, which in any case was scorned by the exponents of the "art of memory", but Iwould suggest that we might recognise the natural propensity of children towardsthe memory tools which were identified in the work of Homer and Cicero, withbeneficial results. These tools are those to which I referred above, the employmentof pattern and rhythm as memory aids, and the use of visualisation and imagery.

Over and over again the storytellers who returned my questionnaire referredto their use of rhythm and pattern in learning stories:

"Movement of walking helps them to sink in."Wendy Dacre

"Going for long walks trying out the language and rhythms."Hugh Lupton

"Selecting music and walking quietly in a confiined space, mapping the journeyof the story, is important."

Vayu Naidu

"Telling it out loud to myself when I play my mbira."June Peters

"I never ever write the stories — I'm totally into developing them with my bodyand feelings ... I mutter the stories as I walk to get them into my body ... (I tell)it a lot, so that our rhythms merge."

Ben Haggarty

"I always learnt a story by telling it to myself aloud.... I did this by, by tellingmyself stories as I walked along the road."

Eileen Colwell

These storytellers who learn to the rhythmic movements of walking or therhythmic sounds of music are very close in spirit to the poets of Ancient Greecewho composed, remembered and retold epic poem-stories of great length. "TheOdyssey" is the greatest extant example of their work, and it must have beenregularly performed for many years, perhaps centuries, before it was writtendown. How did the poets who recited it bring the episodes they wished to performto the forefront of their minds and how did they succeed in maintaining the tightstructure of the eleven-syllable line of the verse form? Research suggests (AdamParry, 1971) that it was the playing of the lyre which enabled this prodigiousfeat of memory, not so much through the music, but because of the rhythmicbody movement engendered by playing, as the hands swept regularly across thestrings, which enabled the poet to begin with a familiar and formulaic opening,and then to 'unroll' the rest of the story from the memory in a rhythmic andpatterned way. This draws on an inner rhythmic structure which is also exploited

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by contemporary storytellers, as the above examples demonstrate. Young childrenalso draw on rhythm and pattern, as their ability to memorise nursery rhymes,patterned and rhythmic stories, and alphabet chants, shows only too well. Theyalso manifestly make use of body rhythms, not only for comfort, but also asmemory aids for skipping and playground games, raps and chants. If suchactivities were accorded more status and brought in from the playground to theclassroom, teachers might notice considerable benefits to children's powers ofmemory and confidence in retelling stories that they know and can make theirown. Sharon Jacksties, a musician as well as a storyteller, draws a powerful analogybetween storytelling and music which is particularly relevant here:

"This relationship between memory and hearing and seeing (reading) andnot remembering is one which emerges in many different practices. I oftencomment on it, for instance with fellow traditional musicians — to learn a tuneby ear is to remember, to read it by music is to play it at the time and to forgetit as soon as it is over."

The other main mnemonic device used by contemporary storytellers is thatof visualisation. There are many references to this technique throughout thequestionnaires. Here is a sample of them:

"I think probably I see a series of pictures in my mind, and I would see them in... in colour, I think, and in sequence of course, and I could pass from pictureto picture, and 1 think it's absolutely vital that a storyteller should see what'shappening in her own mind; if you don't see it it's difficult to describe it asvividly."

Eileen Colwell

"I come back to working on it, always looking at the mental images conjured up,never attempting to describe them in detail, but holding onto those images andremembering that I am aiming to help my audience to see their own mentalimages."

Marion Oughton

"If the pattern holds up and the imagery is there when I tell it then it's ready... no set form ever really gets fixed — it changes every time I tell it. You needthe pictures/ideas to take you on."

Kevin Cotter

"With some stories it's like setting the video off in my head and telling it."Jean Edmiston

"In committing stories to memory I rely upon a strong sense of location; Imove each episode into a house, a field or a landscape that I know well. Thisenables me to visualise the action and the sequence of events with completeconfidence."

Clive Fairweather

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STORYTELLING IN THE CLASSROOM 9

These storytellers, and the many others whose words I have not included here,because of lack of space, are using an age-old system of creating pictures in themind to hold and retain ideas. Cicero and other thinkers in Roman times wenteven further than this, developing a system known as the art of memory (arsmemoria) to memorise their speeches (Frances Yates, 1966). The method involvedcommitting to memory the layout of a familiar building and then 'placing' in it, inspecific locations, symbols or images to represent the main points of the speech.Suggested images include a spear, or an anchor. Then in making the speechthe rhetor simply 'walked' in his imagination through the memorised building,'picking up' the images in turn as he came to them arid so following a beatentrack not only through the memory location but also through the speech. Thismethod was used, adapted and developed for hundreds of years and the availabledocumentation on the art of memory, up to and including its development inthe Renaissance, is fascinating reading. However, my main interest lies with itsearliest manifestations as a straightforward memory system. Could it be used,or adapted for use, in the classroom? I am not yet in a position to commenton this aspect, though recent research into maps of play (Myra Barrs, 1988),and my own experience with storymaps and storyboards leads me to suspectthat children are already finding the value of visual, drawn memory locationswhich are not dissimilar in concept or use to the mental locations favoured bythe Roman rhetors. Furthermore, it is clear to me that there are professionaland well-respected storytellers using their own adaptations or inventions of thismethod as memory tools. Clive Fairweather, quoted above, describes the useof a virtually identical method to that attributed to Cicero, using, as Cicerorecommended, locations which are well-known to him and so easier to committo the memory.

I leave the final word on the memory powers of the storyteller to.HelenEast, who, while not herself using the memory systems outlined in this paper,nevertheless pinpoints the contribution which is made by storytelling to the abilityto remember and recall. She responded to the questionnaire on tape, and anextract from the transcription of her tape follows:

"So, one more point on this, and that is, that I think that the more you learnstories the easier it is to learn them, and I've been doing it sort of I suppose for ajob for a good many years and so I find it easier in a way because of the patterns.The patterns are very familiar and so I know something and I just have toremember one or two separate details that are from a different version, if yousee what I mean, and also because I think that part of the memory developsthe more that you use it so for example I'm much better at remembering jokesthan I was when I was ten."

The connections which I have established between the working methods ofancient and modern storytellers make an excellent exemplar of the way in whichthe oral tradition functions, maintaining unbroken links of tradition which arepassed orally from storyteller to storyteller and which preserves traditional lore in

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stories, fragments and rhymes, as well as in the thought forms which are peculiarto the oral tradition. The characteristics of traditional oral language forms areclearly identifiable within an ethnographic framework (Walter J. Ong, 1982).However, no one has yet, to my knowledge, sought to analyse the oral languageforms of the preliterate child using this framework. I feel that the study of presentand past practitioners of the oral tradition has much to offer to our understandingof the preliterate child, and that such a study might lead to a reevaluation ofhis/her language forms. To give but one example, the repetitive linking form socommon in early writing ("... and then I went home and then I had my tea andthen I went to bed") which teachers try so earnestly to vary by introducing childrento other conjunctions, is in fact a typical, appropriate and formulaic constructionof the oral tradition. The young child is, naturally enough, bringing familiar oralforms to the unfamiliar written medium. A consideration of the function of orallanguage in the transitional period of children from orality to literacy would bewell worthwhile, and reflection upon the value, complexity and longevity of theoral tradition which is the original birth right of every child, wherever they areborn, would certainly lead, in my view, to a reevaluation of the oral tradition whichis seriously undervalued in contemporary literate society. Such a shift in valueswould not be easily achieved. However, in the words of the Russian oral tradition,"the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." This paper represents,I hope, such a step.

References

Polanyi, M. (1978) "Personal Knowledge": The making of Homeric verse towards a post-criticalphilosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Parry, A. (ed.) (1971) "The Collected Papers of Milman Parry". Oxford: Clarendon Press.Yates, F. (1966) "The Art of Memory". London, Routledge.Barrs, M. (1988) "Maps of Play". In Meek, M. and Mills, C. (eds.) "Language and Literacy in the

Primary School", Lewes: Falmer Press.Ong, W.J. (1982) "Orality and Literacy". New York: Routledge.

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