Sherry Norfolk - Storytelling Strategies for Reaching and Teaching Children with Special Needs

Storytelling Strategies
for Reaching and
Teaching Children with
Special Needs

SHERRY NORFOLK AND LYN FORD,
EDITORS

Foreword by Kendall Haven

Copyright 2018 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Norfolk, Sherry, 1952- editor. | Ford, Lyn, 1951- editor.

Title: Storytelling strategies for reaching and teaching children with special needs / Sherry Norfolk and Lyn Ford, editors ; foreword by Kendall Haven.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017029263 (print) | LCCN 2017050053 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440853647 (hardcopy : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440853654 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Storytelling in education. | Special education.

Classification: LCC LB1042 .S838 2018 (print) | LCC LB1042 (ebook) | DDC 372.67/7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029263

ISBN: 9781440853647
EISBN: 9781440853654

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper

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Dedicated to the students from whom we have learned so much and to the parents and mentors who have shared their love and learning with those students and us.

Love is the final purpose of the world story.
Novalis, poet and philosopher, 17721801

Kendall Haven

Sherry Norfolk and Lyn Ford

Sherry Norfolk

Lyn Ford

Sherry Norfolk

Dr. Mollie E. Bolton

Donna Washington

Lyn Ford and Sherry Norfolk

Sherry Norfolk

Lyn Ford

Lyn Ford

Annette Harrison

Asha Sampath

Judith Black

Sherry Norfolk

Katie Knutson

Emily Nanney

Rachel Hartman

Sherry Norfolk

Dr. Amanda M. Lawrence

Sherry Norfolk

Jeri Burns (The Storycrafters)

Cherri Coleman

Sherry Norfolk

Darlene Neumann

Sherry Norfolk

Lyn Ford

Lyn Ford

Erika Van Order and Geneva Foster-Shearburn

Lyn Ford

Christine Moe

Betty Braun

Sherry Norfolk and Karen Young

Ailie Finlay

Sherry Norfolk

Sheila Wee

Gwen Bonilla

Cassandra Wye

Lyn Ford

Patty Carleton

Lyn Ford

Ken Wolfe

Sherry Norfolk

Lyn Ford

Arianna Ross and Suzanne Richard

Lyn Ford

Kendall Haven

As you see throughout this book, virtually every teacher who has employed storytelling reports tremendous success. But is this just selective anecdotal evidence, or is there hard science research to back up a classroom devotion to story and storytelling?

The short answer is: absolutely, yes! There is overwhelming, compelling, and conclusive solid science evidence to both establish that storytelling is effective and to explain why stories and storytelling are so important in the teaching environment. But lets unpack that short answer a bit and lay out exactly what we know and how it applies to your classroom.

Why do humans pay more attention to stories than to the same information being delivered some other way? (And, yes, all experiments on this topic show that we do.) Why do we remember stories better than the same information delivered in other ways? (And, again, yes, we do.) Why do we so readily and naturally transport ourselves into the world of a story? What is it about the human brain that makes us so naturally and universally storytelling animals? These are the kinds of questions that have driven storytelling research.

If you are already convinced that storytelling is the most effective and most powerful teaching tool in your arsenal, then feel free to skip this article. However, take comfort in knowing that the science research (especially neuroscience) is there to fully justify your reliance on storytelling in your own special education (SPED) classroom.

But first, a quick word about this thing we call a brain that is so controlled by story structure and story thinking.

Ancient Egyptians thought so little of the brain that they made a practice of scooping it out through the nose and throwing it away before mummifying the body and placing important organs (liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines) in elaborately decorated jars. Aristotle believed that consciousness resided in the heart, not in the head. In 1662, philosopher Henry Moore scoffed that the brain showed no more capacity for thought than a cake of suet or a bowl of curds.

As late as the mid-1700s, scientists believed that thought, intelligence, and consciousness were lodged almost anywhere in the human body other than in the brain. Some thought it happened in the heart. Others favored the intestines. Some chose the stomach. Others tried to prove that intelligence rested in the lungs. Those beliefs are the origins of phrases such as Trust your gut. Whats your gut reaction? or Listen to your heart. When first used, those phrases meant, Stop and think about it!

Through recent neural lab experiments, we have established that story is the gatekeeper of the brain, controlling all access to your mind and memory.

Ball your hands into fists and hold them together, knuckles touching with thumbs on top and pinkie fingers on the bottom. Thats about how big your brain is. No wires, sparks, batteries, or flashes. Just a wrinkly, soft-to-the-touch lump that is 85 percent water and weighs typically less than three pounds. But that glob of wobbly goo controls everything you do, everything you feel, everything you think, everything you dream and wish. Your brain faithfully performs thousands of functions every second.

The typical brain contains 100 billion brain cells (100,000,000,000)about the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way. Each cell is linked by synapses to as many as 100,000 others. Your brain has created over 500 trillion (500,000,000,000,000) wiggling string-like fibers called axons and dendrites that connect with other neurons at junctions called synapses.

Neurons link with others to form networks of brain cells, inked with thick ribbons of dendrites and synapses. Networked regions and subregions of the brain wire together so that they automatically fire together. Different networks are in constant cutthroat competition to expand and to increase their dominance over brain activity. The network of central concern in this article, your Neural Story Net (NSN), forms before birth and, by the time you were only a few months old, it assumed a dominate role in making sense out of incoming information. In the typical brain, the NSN never loses that powerful and important position.