Igniting Your Personal and Professional Growth

Describe one or two, specific learning experiences from your fellowship. In words, show us this experience and explain why it was powerful.

The Scottish Crannog Centre highlighted how ancient stories and artifacts connect through time to today's storytellers and traditions. Our guide gave us a private tour of the artifact archive and questioned us about what stories we thought the artifacts told. His open questioning style and expert manner of guiding us through storymaking from artifacts is something I would like to replicate with my students. The centre also works with at risk youth to teach them a craft and build character.

What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn professionally?

I learned that I can operate outside of my comfort zone. After our morning storytelling workshop, I crafted a story and shared it with our facilitator and my fellow teacher. It was uncomfortable, but empowering. It also made me empathize with students who may need more time to build confidence and trust before completing new tasks. Our storytelling workshop leader used multiple formats for storytelling reinforcing the need for differentiation, too.

What were some unplanned or unexpected experiences or outcomes of your fellowship? Or, how did the fellowship you crafted differ from the actual learning experience?

We had a disappointing (Covid) cancellation the day before our last day. Our AirBNB host told us about the Wee Museum of Scottish Memory in Leith. It was such a treasure of an experience! They use photographs and artifacts to jog the memory of the elderly and record their stories. They also have developed a multi-use space that creates opportunities to create new stories around traditional crafts like sewing circles and activities like fencing.

Impacting Your Classroom, School and Community

Outline specific plans you have to implement your fellowship and reach your student goals.

I have created a year long storytelling curriculum for library class students to dovetail with the social studies and writing curriculum in the classroom. Students will increase their reading comprehension through reading traditional tales while recrafting them using the lessons based on the Storytelling Centre's workshop materials. They will also use primary documents to research and write about local history. This is a transformation of my library curriculum for third and fourth graders.

What is one way you can leverage your fellowship to create one authentic learning experience for students? (e.g. hands-on learning, projects, community engagement)

Students will create a storytelling map that integrates existing stories, local history, and original stories. Students who complete their writing sample, will go on a field trip around Madison County to record their stories on location. Students will also participate in the family storytelling event at our spring family literacy night, too.

How, specifically, will your fellowship extend beyond your classroom? (e.g. families, school-at-large, afterschool groups, surrounding community, colleagues, etc.)

We plan to extend our fellowship beyond the classroom by hosting a family storytelling event in the spring. Students will also publish their integrated storymaps to our school's social media and share it with our public library's archive department.

Inspiring the Future

How did your students benefit from your learning?

As a result of my fellowship, I came back to school with a passion for storytelling that I was ready to share with my students. They learned that the art of writing comes first from being able to tell a good story. Students were much less anxious about writing after we practiced oral storytelling and learned the elements of a good story. We have not received the results of our state testing to see if that confidence and those new skills led to better test scores.

What is a project or change inspired by your fellowship that resulted in a tangible learning experience for your students and/or school community?

The year before our fellowship, I taught a daily podcasting class that languished. We never produced anything that felt authentic enough to publish. This year, we launched our podcast on anchor and two student groups submitted completed podcast episodes to the NPR student podcast.

What community collaborations stemmed from your fellowship experience? (Community can mean your campus peers, school/local community, etc.)

We were more confident reaching out to community members to participate in our podcast. We also invited successful social media storytellers to Google Meet with our class. Due to scheduling conflicts our school did not hold it's literary night, but we plan to do it in early fall next year. Meanwhile, we've set up a collaboration within our school to bring a storytelling after school club that will be offered not only to our 3rd graders targeted in this grant, but all students in our school.

In what ways was this opportunity transformative for your teaching?

I am a librarian and know the power of storytelling, but I was transformed by how much storytelling permeates every part of our lives and every kind of industry. It helped me and my students realize that if we thought storytelling wasn't part of their future as doctors, engineers, or farmers that we were so wrong. Successful enterprises, relationships, and communities are all built around the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. Examples abound everywhere we live, work, and play.