A Storytelling Lesson

how we began our final unit of the school year

In her poem “Miles from Any Shoreline,” Sarah Kay shares how one day on a run she “found a starfish alone on the asphalt,” remarking how it was “an unsolvable mystery, with no witness to corroborate.”

That’s how I feel about what happens in the classroom sometimes as a teacher.

Such as when it is the last week of April and there is no apparent momentum entering the classroom that day as students enter the room exhausted by the research processes they just concluded and already eyeing summer break—not to mention the inevitable distractions of the final month of school that are, as always, beginning to surmount all else.

This was the context in which we began our final English 10 unit this past week with a lesson centered around storytelling—which asked students to reflect on what a story was, explore how to notice the story of another, and to take their own first step into the power of sharing their story with others.

Quite an ask, right, given the last-week-of-April context?

Well, this classroom full of sophomores leaned into it fully. The room came alive over the class period, and I stood there by the end of the lesson wondering what to do with this starfish of a lesson that I had stumbled upon, with no witness to corroborate beyond the students themselves who made it happen.

So it felt worth sharing, and that’s all today’s post is. (And for those curious, here’s a link to the full lesson slide deck that we used!)

Here’s my story of this particular lesson on storytelling.

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Starting with Community-Building

Given that the research unit we just concluded had a considerable amount of independent work, especially in its latter half, one of my priorities as a teacher for our English 10 classroom was to center community as much as possible going into our last instructional unit of the school year.

As a result, students found themselves in new groups walking in, and we moved through a series of conversations to open the class period with the explicit goal of just getting students talking with each other, both in their groups and whole-class.

After the opening question around their feelings about the rest of the school year (see above), students were asked whether the school year up to this point had been more of a mirror year or a window year—giving me the opportunity to call on every student by name and have them share “mirror” or “window” before they returned back into their groups to debrief.

• Every group beginning the day in conversation with each other ✅

• Every student’s name spoken aloud in the classroom ✅

• Every student’s voice heard aloud by their classmates ✅

Sometimes at this point in the year I can find myself drifting from what is simple and, simultaneously, also drifting from what is important, and this community-building opening was without question the best way to spend our opening ten minutes.

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Essential Question: Can I Tell My Story?

From there, we continued our conversation by shifting to the essential question our classroom will sit with individually and collectively throughout our upcoming unit as students explore Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime but also work to develop storytelling capacities themselves: how confident are you in your ability to tell your own story to others?

On a sticky note, each student responded by writing down a number 1-7 and then briefly explaining their reasoning for it.

Then I called out each number, starting with 7’s, and those who had written down that number stood up, walked across the room, and “voted with their feet” by attaching it to our “Sticky Thoughts” board that we use for questions like this frequently throughout the year.

Here’s what the board looked like at the end of three classes of doing this:

“Okay,” I told them, once everyone had returned to their groups, “now for the goal this unit—can you move your sticky note to the right by the end?”

Can the 2’s become 3’s or even 4’s? Can the 5’s become 6’s? Can the 7’s become even more of a 7? Even an 8?

“Being able to tell your own story matters,” I added, “probably more than everything else we’ve done this year in this room.”

A lot of heads nodded as I paused for a beat, and then we kept going.

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Exploring Storytelling Through Poetry

Walking hand-in-hand with our focus on telling our own stories in this final unit, though, is the capacity to notice the stories of those around us—not only the surface-level stories, but also “the underneath” of those stories that too often are missed.

This meant that we needed to shift gears to practice this “noticing” capacity—and, as we like to do in our classroom, we did this through the lens of poetry.

First we took down a definition of anecdote and discussed how great storytellers weave in anecdotes to help convey that “underneath” they want to be understood. Then—using the anecdote-framing pictured above on another sticky note—we twice watched through Kay’s “Miles from Any Shoreline,” taking note of the different anecdotes brilliantly woven within it (first watch) and considering the way they serve her story’s “underneath” (second watch).

From there we shifted to reading and annotating a different poem that I absolutely love to bring into the classroom for this particular unit: Ada Limón’s “The Raincoat,” a wonderfully-nuanced, heartfelt poem that concludes with a meaning-revealing anecdote of its own.

Students noticed through their annotating and then again through their discussing, and in doing so began to live out that value of listening to the stories of others that this unit aims to prioritize and develop.

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Exit Ticket, Pt. 1: Write Your Own Story

Up to this point in the lesson, students had spent time telling bits and pieces of their own stories with classmates; and then spent time noticing the bits and pieces of stories told through poetry.

Now it was their turn to put pencil to paper as storytellers.

Using the framing from Limón’s poem, students had a good stretch of time to think and then write their own anecdote, reflecting on what happened, their reaction to the experience, and what it ultimately led them to realize.

(At this point in the lesson I shared my own exemplar with them, too, of a summer baseball coach getting so fed up with our team that he drove us to a bridge across a local river and made us jump nearly fifty feet into the water below before he’d drive us back to the baseball field.)

Some students immediately began to write, while others took some time reflecting first but, eventually, every pencil in the room was scribbling and the stories of the students in the room began to find their way onto the papers atop the desks.

Reading through these stories after the lesson concluded, too, it was clear to me that (a) students found their own way to tell the stories they wanted to tell in this space and (b) these were stories that mattered to students—in some cases, a great deal.

Agency and purpose. Check and check.

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Exit Ticket, Pt. 2: Share Your Own Story With Others

If I’m being honest, most lessons in our classroom end a bit too silently this time of year, usually with some sort of written reflection in their spiral or exit ticket (such as the above section)—a decent way to capture learning from the lesson, yes, but definitely not the ideal way to close out a classroom community.

“Okay everyone,” I said after the timer for the writing went off, keeping in mind that original value for the day of community. “Now for the most important part.”

One at a time, with group members they’ve just spent the entire classroom conversing with (this is important!), each student was instructed to share their anecdote exit ticket start-to-finish with their group, keeping in mind a) how they were delivering their story aloud as well as b) how they were listening to the stories of their classmates.

“Take your time with each one,” I told them. “Add whatever you feel needs to be added. Make it the story you want it to be—that’s what storytellers do!”

1, 2, 3—go.

This was the true starfish moment of this lesson: the room sparked to a whole new level of life immediately, leaving me to just wander around hearing the remnants and echoes of the different stories being shared aloud peer-to-peer, noticing some students smiling and laughing, others students nodding attentively, and all students engaged fully with each other in their groups.

A classroom alive with stories.

(Where else would you rather be?)

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Paying Forward Our Stories

The classroom can be an incredible place—this is a conviction I’ve long held, and the sophomores in our classroom this past week once again reminded me of this with the authenticity and generosity they brought into this lesson.

With Teacher Appreciation Week starting tomorrow, of course I also acknowledge the very-real obstacles to making the classroom an incredible place. It has very much been a school year of precarity in education in too many ways, and with too little certainty ahead on the horizon.

To choose to be a teacher in this moment? It is a choice, in every sense of that word.

Yet as much as I love to ruminate about the “big things” going on in education in these posts, nearly three years into The Broken Copier I realize that the heart of our own story has been leaning into what we began with: talking authentically about what’s happening in our own classrooms as teachers, and when possible sharing generously strategies and resources that can potentially be helpful for others.

(Speaking of resources, here is the final project these sophomores will complete to tell their own stories as we close out the year, in case anyone wants to try it out or adapt for their own classroom! It’s seriously one of my favorite things we do.)

At the end of the day, my own story as a teacher is ultimately one of sincere gratitude—including for those who continue to read and listen here, who engage and share to continue building community, and who keep motivating us to keep this project going!

Reflecting on my thirteen years in the classroom, I fully recognize that I am the teacher I am as a result of the other teachers in my life, both when I was a student and then when I stepped into the classroom as a teacher myself. So many learnings from so many teachers and mentors and colleagues—and, most of all, students!—and so many reminders that this has to be community work.

What better way to affirm community than to continue telling our own stories and listening to the stories of others?

If you’re willing, what is one thing you appreciate about being a teacher—or one thing you appreciate about another teacher in your life who has shaped your own journey? Feel free to add your response in the comments. (Or, for those willing, to share aloud via this link and we’ll try to include some in future episodes!)

Your story as a teacher matters, and deserves not just to be noticed but celebrated, and I hope your Teacher Appreciation Week offers the celebration and affirmation you need and deserve.

Thank you reading, take care of yourselves, and enjoy this week for teachers!