Best Practice

The stories we tell: Using story to organise curriculum

Lesson planning Curriculum Pedagogy
Storytelling can be incredibly powerful. In this four-part series, Matt Bromley considers how can we use story to improve our teaching and curriculum delivery. In part two, he explores practical ideas and suggestions for using stories to bring the curriculum and our lessons to life

There are, to my mind, six ways of using story and storytelling in our teaching. These are:

  1. To organise the curriculum and structure lessons.
  2. To aide students’ memorisation.
  3. To pique students’ curiosity and wonder.
  4. To relate the curriculum to the real world.
  5. To help promote inclusion.
  6. To prepare students for future success.

Last time, we explored the power of story in the classroom. In the next three articles of this series, we will look at each of the six ways listed above in turn…

 

1, To organise the curriculum and structure lessons

In his paper, The privileged status of story, cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham (2004) says: “Stories are special. There is something inherent in the story format that makes them easy to understand and remember.”

As such, he adds: “Teachers can (use) the basic elements of story structure to organise lessons, even if they don't plan to tell a story in class.”

In other words, stories can be used as a structure for the whole curriculum and for individual lessons rather than just as a tool employed within lessons because using story to structure learning helps create a sense of continuity between lessons, and helps students remember key concepts and ideas.

One way to use stories as a structure for lessons is to create a “storyline” or “plot” that spans multiple lessons – perhaps the topic or unit, or a sequence of connected lessons. This plot arc might take the form of a progression map which illustrates the curriculum journey: what will be taught and why, how this new knowledge adds to prior learning, and how it will be added to by future learning in order to create ever-more complex schema.

Using story as a structure for lessons can help foster a sense of coherence because students can see how each lesson fits into a larger narrative – what we might call “the bigger picture” of the curriculum. This can help make learning more meaningful and engaging for students because they are able to see how each lesson relates to the wider context – whether that be a topic, unit, or subject discipline, or indeed the world beyond timetabled lessons.

In simple terms, we need to share our curriculum planning with students and repeatedly and explicitly tell them the story of our subject discipline: what we are learning today, how this builds upon what we learned yesterday, how this will be built upon by what we learn tomorrow, and why all of this matters. We also need to make explicit the real-world applications of this learning.

 

SecEd Series: The stories we tell

 

The 4Cs

Willingham says that, in order to understand why story is so useful when structuring learning, it is necessary to understand the underlying format of stories.

Definitions of story vary, but there is relative agreement, Willingham says, on the basic four features of good stories. Below, I’ve paraphrased his descriptions of each one: 

 

Causality: Events in stories are related because one event causes or initiates another. For example, "The King died and then the Queen died" presents two events chronologically, but "The King died, and the Queen died of grief" links the events with causal information.

Conflict: In every story, a central character has a goal and obstacles that prevent the goal from being met. "Scarlett O'Hara loved Ashley Wilkes, so she married him" has causality, but it's not much of story. A story moves forward as the character takes action to remove the obstacle. In Gone With the Wind, the first obstacle Scarlett faces is that Ashley doesn't love her.

Complications: If a story were just a series of episodes in which the character hammers away at her goal, it would be dull. Rather, the character's efforts to remove the obstacle typically create complications—new problems that she must try to solve. When Scarlett learns that Ashley doesn't love her, she tries to make him jealous by agreeing to marry Charles Hamilton, an action that, indeed, poses new complications for her.

Character: Strong, interesting characters are essential to good stories, and screenwriters agree that the key to creating interesting characters is to allow the audience to observe them in action. F. Scott Fitzgerald went so far as to write: "Action is character." Rather than tell us that Scarlett O'Hara is popular and a coquette, the first time we meet her we observe two men fawning over her.

 

So, how can the 4Cs be used to organise the curriculum and structure lessons? Here’s Willingham again to explain what this might look like in history:

“History is a natural story; it has the four Cs – causality, conflicts, complications, and character – built in. There are ways to use the four Cs as the framework for developing lesson plans. For example, a typical lesson on the Spanish-American War emphasises President Cleveland's and then President McKinley's reluctance to do anything about the Cuban revolution against the Spanish, despite the considerable economic stake that the US had in the country. Successive events (the publishing of an insulting letter by the Spanish Minister and the sinking of the Maine), lead to a US ultimatum that is rejected by the Spanish, whereupon the US declares war. Considering the four Cs might lead to a different framework. The strong character in this drama is Spain because it is Spain's actions that move the story forward. Thus, a teacher might begin with the background of how Spain first came to control Cuba and the failed revolt of 1868-1878. The central conflict of the story is how the Spanish should deal with the revolt: put it down or try to accommodate the Cubans. The first complication is the increasing involvement of the U.S. in this conflict, which offers a third option – allow the US to mediate. At each step, the teacher would ensure that the causal link between one event and the next was clear to students. Story format can inform the structuring of a lesson plan, even if the lesson does not include a story per se.”

Story structure is important because it requires the reader to make inferences which causes thinking. They are also easier to comprehend than other forms of text. One reason for this is that we know the format, and that gives us a reasonable idea of what to expect.

When an event is described in a story, we expect that the event will be causally related to a prior event in the story. The listener uses his or her knowledge of story structure to relate the present event to what has already happened.

 

Freytag’s Pyramid

I’m a big fan of crime fiction, particularly detective novels like Sherlock Holmes and, more recently, Ian Rankin’s Rebus series. The detective novel is formulaic in the best sense of the term: there is a shape and pattern that must be obeyed: in the “whodunnit?”, a murder mystery must be solved by the end of the book and there are hidden clues for the reader to unravel. In fact, detective novels often take a shape similar to Freytag’s Pyramid.

Freytag's Pyramid, also known as the dramatic structure, is a model used to analyse and describe the plot of a story. The pyramid was named after German novelist Gustav Freytag, who first described the model in his book Technique of the Drama in 1863. His pyramid consists of five parts:

  1. Exposition: This is the beginning of the story where the setting, characters, and background information are introduced.
  2. Rising action: This is where the conflict of the story is introduced, and events begin to unfold, leading up to the climax.
  3. Climax: This is the turning point of the story, where the conflict reaches its highest point, and the protagonist faces their greatest challenge.
  4. Falling action: This is where the events following the climax begin to unfold, and loose ends are tied up.
  5. Resolution: This is the end of the story, where the conflict is resolved, and the story concludes.

As well as providing a framework for crime fiction, Freytag's Pyramid can be a useful tool for structuring learning in a way that engages students and helps them retain information.

Here are some ways to apply Freytag's Pyramid to lesson planning:

 

Exposition: Begin the unit by introducing the topic and providing background information. This can include teacher explanations which frontload key concepts and vocabulary, as well as activate relevant prior knowledge, or it can be a video or research assignment that sets the stage for the lesson.

Rising action: This is where the bulk of the unit takes place. Here we provide examples and engage students in activities that build their understanding of the topic. This can include teacher modelling and “thinking aloud”, as well as co-construction, independent practice, and group work.

Climax: The climax of the unit should be a moment where students apply their new knowledge to a challenge or problem. This can be a case study, a debate, or a hands-on project. This is where the unit reaches its peak, and students are challenged to use what they have learned.

Falling action: After the climax, it is important to provide opportunities for students to reflect on what they have learned. This can include a discussion, a journaling activity, or a quiz to reinforce key concepts. Here, we can explicitly teach metacognitive and self-regulation skills, emphasise the importance of acting on feedback to improve, and develop resilience.

Resolution: The unit should end with a summary of the key points and a clear understanding of how the topic fits into the wider curriculum. This can include a preview of upcoming lessons or a review of how the current unit connects to real-world applications.

 

Thus, by structuring learning according to Freytag's Pyramid, we can create a compelling narrative that engages students and helps them retain information. This, in turn, can help students stay focused and motivated, and it can also make our lessons more memorable and impactful.

 

Next time

Talking of making lessons memorable, next time, in part three, we will explore ways of using story and storytelling to aide student memorisation.

Matt Bromley is an education writer and advisor with more than 20 years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher, principal, FE college vice-principal, and MAT director. Currently, he is a public speaker, trainer, school improvement advisor, the author of numerous books on education and co-host of the award-winning SecEd Podcast. Find his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/matt-bromley

 

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