Kindergarten Story Plays and the Power of Partnering: Work in Progress Presentation

By J.B.	By A.U.	By D.T.
This happened when I was watching Ninjago and the Ninjagos won. These all are wizards. They were trying to tackle the Ninjagos because they were playing football. But the wizards kept falling and tripping because their shoes were untied. I was watching it on Jordan and Landon’s iPad.	This is some sun and some ocean and these are sharks and rain pouring down…The sun blooms out because it was raining before and two rainbows came out.	This is a little shark and this is a ocean and the princess is walking through the ocean and she says, “I don’t have no dad or mom,” and then the shark eats the princess and there’s a sun and there was a boat and they saved the princess.

AREA OF INQUIRY AND LEARNING GOAL

Last year, I created Story Play Time in my classroom because I wanted my students to see themselves as authors with stories worth hearing and reading, despite their very limited writing mechanics skills. Children are natural storytellers and Story Plays makes space in the Kindergarten classroom for children to plan, draw, tell and act out their stories, freed from the constraints and anxieties associated with writing. 

I began to notice, however, that some children, like J.B., were simply regurgitating television or video game plots. Others, like A.U., had a sort of writer’s block that took the form of repetitive rain, rainbows and sunshine. I wondered why these naturally creative and imaginative five-year-olds were having trouble thinking of an original story. Then there were students like D.T., an English Language Learner with a world of ideas, but little structure to organize them. I wondered: How could planning, drawing and acting out Story Plays with a partner support my students’ oral language and story writing skills?

Like last year, my goal is for my students to develop a sense of themselves as writers with stories worth hearing and reading. This year, I also hoped that they would develop stronger narratives by using ideas from their own lives and experiences, stories they have read and heard, collaborative conversations with their peers, and the tools of a more explicit story structure. Specifically, I hoped that strategic partnerships would create collaborative relationships to strengthen my students’ oral language and storytelling skills.

In choosing my focal students, I decided to pair A.U. and her rainbows and sunshines with D.T. and her endless yet unstructured string of ideas. In September, A.U. already had a lot of experience with books, had no trouble retelling familiar stories and knew most letters and sounds. But she struggled each time she had to come up with her own original story. D.T., on the other hand, made up elaborate and detailed stories with ease, but lacked a clear structure in her narratives, knew very few letters and sounds, and, as an English Language Learner, needed support in vocabulary skills and sentence structure. I hoped their strengths and challenges would compliment each other as they worked together on their Story Plays. 

ROUTINE DATA SOURCE AND INDICATORS OF SUCCESS

I wanted to see my students’ stories move from sunshine, rainbows and strings of ideas to more structured narratives that included key elements for a strong beginning, middle, and end (such as character, setting, problem, solution, dialogue, etc.). I wanted them to develop their stories with a clear plan and then spend their work time putting that plan to paper through drawing and dictation. I also wanted my students to engage in a collaborative process in which they share ideas and take turns, allowing both partner’s ideas to emerge and building off each other’s ideas to create a stronger story.

   

While A.U. And D.T. have been creating crocodiles, castles and magic wands--experimenting with what makes a good story--I have been looking closely at their story play drawings and dictation (product data).  I have also been examining video recordings and transcripts of their collaboration (process data) during planning and work time, when they draw their story, talk about it together, dictate to me, and act it out. In addition to this "How they do it" data, I have also collected "How they think about what they do" data, video-taping whole class discussions that ask for more meta-cognitive thinking: “Where do your stories come from?” and "What makes a good story?"

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DATA 

During these class discussions about story plays, my students say they get their ideas from their own lives and experiences ("I think about stuff that's' true and about that's not true.") or from elements and anchor charts we have studied in class ("I make some problems, and then I make another problem, and then I make it fixed."). But from what I have observed in their planning, writing, and acting of story plays, I have come to the conclusion that their stories mostly come from each other: from talking and drawing together, from adding to each other’s ideas, hearing their classmates’ stories, from acting out their story plays. For example, the day after we acted out a story about a princess on a mountain who got stuck in a hurricane and a fire, three other groups decided to write stories with princesses as protagonists and fires flamed in two other stories. After two students wrote a story featuring alligators, D.T. and A.U. added crocodiles to their next story. During Story Play Time, story development is a collective effort---collaboration is key.

In the first Story Play session, A.U. and D.T. plan by simply listing items to include in their picture: sharks, princess, water, castle, etc. In the second session, A.U. focuses on the characters and the happy ending. D.T. seems to have a clearer plan, incorporating interesting dialogue, but her story doesn’t make a lot of sense. In each session, D.T. dominates, not sharing or listening to her partner, and A.U. spends a lot of time drawing rather than talking. Both children revert back to rainstorms, sunshine and rainbows when they run into conflict or run out of ideas. There are many characters and a princess who gets saved, but from what? It is notable that the story content changes throughout the planning, drawing, and dictation process and there is no clear problem in their story. D.T. has a good sense of her story but is not clear in articulating it and A.U. either does have ideas or doesn’t get a chance to share them.

By the third Story Play session, however, this partnership has shifted considerably. During their planning talk, they are both listening to each other and building off of each other’s ideas. A.U. offers many ideas and keeps checking in with D.T., asking “right?” at the end of each statement. D.T. tends to start over from the beginning as if telling her own story, but incorporates A.U.’s ideas. They are learning to work more collaboratively in a partnership. As for the story content, they start off with a much clearer plan and stick with it through drawing and dictation, as the queen is eaten by crocodiles and then brought back to life by the princess and her magic wand.

CHANGES IN TEACHING 

One significant change I made in my teaching was to focus more explicitly on how partners work together. After the first two Story Play sessions when I noticed A.U. and D.T.'s problems with listening to each other's ideas and sharing drawing and talking time, we spent time during the next mini-lesson brainstorming different ways partners work together (taking turns with ideas, sharing drawing space: It would probably be useful to put these ideas on an anchor chart!) In the third session, perhaps as a result of better collaboration, A.U. and D.T.'s story content was stronger and clearer as well!

Another major change had to do with how I instructed my students to work on the content of their stories. While we had started by working on the beginning, middle, and end in three separate sessions, I noticed that A.U. and D.T., along with several other pairs, were essentially starting over with a new story with each new session, rather than continuing and developing their story from before. I realized that at this early point in the year, it makes more sense for the children to work on the entire story in one session and move towards more detailed and separate story parts later in the year.

LEARNING PROGRESS

In their fourth and most recent Story Play session, A.U. and D.T. showed tremendous progress towards a more structured and coherent story developed through a collaborative process of building off of each others ideas. 

In planning, A.U. began with a problem that got quickly solved: "There was a fire and this fairy appeared and washed it out." D.T. picked up the fairy and fire elements of A.U.'s plan and incorporated those to elaborate on the problem with a new character, Ravin: "There was a boy, and then the boy died of Kindergarten [?] and the name was Ravin and that was cool... and then they taked them to the police. I mean to the fire station. And there was a fairy inside and then sh-- and then they magic-ed him to do--back into a people, right?"

During their work time, D.T. watched A.U. drawing the fire station and a sun and began to tell the story, with the added detail of the boy getting lost: "There was a fire station and there was a boy and there was a police and the boy got lost." She continued narrating as A.U. drew the boy and the fireman: "And then the fireman found the boy [?] (and this whole big--) and then the boy was alive." and then D.T. began to draw too. 

The final dictation by A.U. reads: "This little boy goes in lava. There's a person named Ravin and there's these firemens and this little boy dies. But then this fairy comes and he makes the boy back into a person. That's all."

	A.U.	D.T.
PLAN	There was a fire and this fairy appeared and washed it out.
		There was a boy, and then the boy died of Kindergarten [?] and the name was Ravin and that was cool... and then they taked them to the police. I mean to the fire station. And there was a fairy inside and then sh-- and then they magic-ed him to do--back into a people, right?
DRAW		There was a fire station and there was a boy and there was a police and the boy got lost. And then the fireman found the boy [?] (and this whole big--) and then the boy was alive.
DICTATE	This little boy goes in lava. There's a person named Ravin and there's these firemens and this little boy dies. But then this fairy comes and he makes the boy back into a person. That's all.

Although the story elements still lack the depth of detail and storybook language I would like to see, they do reflect a clearer structure for a beginning, middle, and end that include important elements of character, setting, problem and solution. In terms of their process, A.U. and D.T. have come a long way since their first story in September--they show here how listening to each other talk, watching each other draw, and building off of each other's ideas can help to develop a collaborative story. 

Indicators	Focal Student #1 – A.U.	Focal Student #2 – D.T.
I:  Strong story beginning, middle, and end, including key elements such as character, setting, problem, solution, dialogue, etc. (described in detail using storybook language)	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell? Story from Session #4 includes: - a simple beginning with characters ("a person named Ravin" and "these firemens") - a basic problem at the beginning and in the middle (the boy "goes in lava" and dies), and - a new charcater and a solution at the end ("this fairy comes and he makes this boy back into a person")	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell? Story from Session #4 includes: - beginning with character and setting details ("There was a fire station and there was a boy and there was a police") - a simple problem in the middle ("the boy got lost") - a basic solution and ending ("And then the fireman found the boy... and then the boy was alive.")
II:   Partners sharing ideas, taking turns and building off of each other’s ideas in a collaborative way to jointly construct the story	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell? - A.U. drew the fire station and characters (boy and firemen) that D.T. had brought up during planning time. - A.U.'s original plan was of a fire that was washed out by a fairy, but her final dictation includes D.T.'s ideas about character Ravin who dies in the fire and is brought back to life by the fairy.	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell? - D.T. listened to A.U.'s plan of the fairy and fire and built upon those elements by elaborating on the fire problem with a new character, a boy who died and the fairy at the fire station brought him back to life - D.T. watched A.U. drawing fire station and dictates story about the boy.

While it may seem to classroom visitors that during Story Play Time the children are “just drawing pictures” or “just talking and playing around,” this data shows that my students are deeply engaged in meaningful learning. Through Story Plays--when they have opportunities to work with a partner, talk and draw together, then see their story play acted out--they are exploring and experimenting with what makes a good story and developing important oral language skills that are the foundation for reading and writing.

***BRING 6 copies of table of indicators of success, 6 copies of data example