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Justification for activities

 According to Berice Dudley, storytelling is the art in which a teller conveys a

message, truths, information, knowledge, or wisdom to an audience - often

subliminally - in an entertaining way, using whatever skills, (musical, artistic,

creative) or props he chooses, to enhance the audience's enjoyment, retention and

understanding of the message conveyed. In this task 1(b), we are required to devise

a series of activities to elicit reader response from our pupils which involves

storytelling. So, my partner and I decided to have four steps to be used over a two

week period language arts class. The steps in this series of activities are

brainstorming and demonstrating storytelling, selecting character and making

masks, dramatization and lastly story extension. This activity should be based on at

least one story type and we chose a story from folk tales which entitled Anansi and

the Spider.

In the first step; brainstorming and demonstrating storytelling, the teacher and

students will discuss about the cover of the book and also characteristics of every

characters in that story. Then, the teacher will model storytelling technique to the

students in order for them to practice in the third step. We need to have this step

before we do the dramatization part because it helps the students to have general

knowledge about the story learned and also the elements of characterization in the

story. “Discussion/Brainstorming involving the whole class, groups or pairs…gives

opportunities for the students to express their ideas in class”, (Carter, 1987).

Furthermore, when discussing about the story, the teacher will use some of the

questioning strategies to help students in interpreting the text. This strategy is good

and it is proven by Malachi Edwin Vethamani (2004), “The questioning strategy is

also the key to unlocking the text to the students. Besides that, the use of traditional

storytelling approach by teacher is good in scaffolding young children’s imagination.

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“While hearing a story, images are created and imaginations are stirred” ( Gordon

Wells, 1986).

Next, in the second step; selecting character and making masks, the students

will select one character among their group members and make their own masks. In

our opinion, we think that this step is interconnected with the first step and also the

third step. After the students discussing the text and listen to teacher’s storytelling,

the will do this step before they proceed to the next activity which is the group role-

play. The masks prepared by the students in this part can be used as the props for 

the next part. Thus, this activity is really helpful in developing students’ creativity and

also imagination. When selecting characters in the story, students usually become

 judgmental where they tend to choose good character instead of the bad ones. So,

the teacher needs to play their roles in encouraging the students to think critically

and fairly. “This will not only help students to understand the characters better but

also to see certain issues in a new and different light” (Malachi Edwin Vethamani ,

2004 ).

The third step in our series of activities is the group role-play. Group role-play

is simply, a children’s reenactment of a story they have heard or observed which

involves characters, drama, dialogue, and a plot. In this part, the teacher will give

each group a script and they will do group role-play. This step is suitable to be

integrated as the main part in this series of activities because the students have

observed the teacher as the storytellers in action. “Students who retell stories they

have heard or observed… are engaging in group/dyad telling” ( Approaches to

Storytelling, page 27). Besides, literary texts and drama activities can be used to

teach language skills and also develop the cognitive and affective domains and meet

cultural needs of the students. This happens when the students performing play.

They will use the language to communicate among them and also the expressions to

show how the characters respond to any situations. Furthermore, group role-play

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storytelling helps the students to become more confident and motivated to perform in

front of the audience. This is proven where “drama activities provide numerous

avenues for group work and studies on second language learners show that using

drama in the language classroom has increased students’ motivation, self -esteem

and spontaneity” (Malachi Edwin Vethamani, 2004 ).

Lastly, the final step in our storytelling activity is the story extension. The

teacher and students will predict the ending of the story in more creative and fun

way. This activity is based on Personal Response Based approach where they are

more student-centered. The teacher will just facilitate them in giving the ideas and

also helps them construct sentences in correct way. This approach is excellent for 

group work that can help students “to become actively involved both intellectually

and emotionally” (Lazar, 1993). This activity also integrate language based approach

where it encourage techniques which are learner-centered, activity based and gives

particular attention to the way language is manipulated. Grammar activities such as

cloze procedure and substitution (parallel writing) (Stern, 1987)… will not only able

to provide opportunities for students to manipulate the grammar points studied but

also encourage them to think about the word building respectively. Thus, it is really

good if we use this story extension activity because the students just not practice the

grammar part but also will think creatively in order to make prediction about the

ending of the story.