Reading and Writing WHILE IMPROVISING AND COLLABORATING
Hi all,
I'm going to do two posts about reading and writing, because this seems like a good place to get on my soap box about Group Improvised Story Telling and Writing!
During the past three years, my students and I have really enjoyed and learned from a style of teaching that is somewhat based on a method popularized by Blaine Ray called TPRS. Many people glance at that acronym and think "Total Physical Response," the teaching method developed by James Asher in the 1950s -- and images of children playing Simon Says jump to mind. Now, I am a fan of Simon Says and other teaching strategies that utilize students' kinetic intelligence and physical memory, but for me TPRS has little to do with that.
I think TPRStories.com does a good job of explaining TPRS. The authors discuss Dr. Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis, which suggests that we learn languages receptively through high-interest, meaning-focused input that is just a little more difficult than we can produce (if you know "i", then the teacher should be giving input at "i + 1"). Of course if you're acting while you create, retell, and revise the stories, then you get some of the kinesthetic learning benefits from Total Physical Response. All in all, this method ROCKS for getting kids involved in composing stories that further their language learning.
Here's a link to my classmate Nancy Meredith's blog with a great video of a second rehearsal of a story that her students composed together using aspects of TPRS. Nancy pointed out that the questioning techniques were where a lot of the best interactions come in. Asking the right questions give students power over the story and familiarize them with how to respond to a variety of questions. This site has some good examples and explanations for how and why to use circle questioning.
One of my modifications of the original TPRS method is that I use a computer and a data projector to type the story as the students create it. This allows students to see and read what they have created and immediately modify it through suggestions. You can add mistakes intentionally or unintentionally and use them as teachable correction moments. You can print out the story and students can use them for reading homework, oral practice, scripts for acting out the story, vocabulary activities, parts-of-speech recognition activities, story-re-write activities, and (my personal favorite) students can finish an incomplete story. Here are some examples of stories that my adult students created. You can see a variety of lengths, language proficiency levels, and language objectives. Also notice the creativity!
A CREEPY STORY
George Washington Ghost Story
ZOO STORY
I'm going to do two posts about reading and writing, because this seems like a good place to get on my soap box about Group Improvised Story Telling and Writing!
During the past three years, my students and I have really enjoyed and learned from a style of teaching that is somewhat based on a method popularized by Blaine Ray called TPRS. Many people glance at that acronym and think "Total Physical Response," the teaching method developed by James Asher in the 1950s -- and images of children playing Simon Says jump to mind. Now, I am a fan of Simon Says and other teaching strategies that utilize students' kinetic intelligence and physical memory, but for me TPRS has little to do with that.
I think TPRStories.com does a good job of explaining TPRS. The authors discuss Dr. Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis, which suggests that we learn languages receptively through high-interest, meaning-focused input that is just a little more difficult than we can produce (if you know "i", then the teacher should be giving input at "i + 1"). Of course if you're acting while you create, retell, and revise the stories, then you get some of the kinesthetic learning benefits from Total Physical Response. All in all, this method ROCKS for getting kids involved in composing stories that further their language learning.
Here's a link to my classmate Nancy Meredith's blog with a great video of a second rehearsal of a story that her students composed together using aspects of TPRS. Nancy pointed out that the questioning techniques were where a lot of the best interactions come in. Asking the right questions give students power over the story and familiarize them with how to respond to a variety of questions. This site has some good examples and explanations for how and why to use circle questioning.
One of my modifications of the original TPRS method is that I use a computer and a data projector to type the story as the students create it. This allows students to see and read what they have created and immediately modify it through suggestions. You can add mistakes intentionally or unintentionally and use them as teachable correction moments. You can print out the story and students can use them for reading homework, oral practice, scripts for acting out the story, vocabulary activities, parts-of-speech recognition activities, story-re-write activities, and (my personal favorite) students can finish an incomplete story. Here are some examples of stories that my adult students created. You can see a variety of lengths, language proficiency levels, and language objectives. Also notice the creativity!
A CREEPY STORY
George Washington Ghost Story
ZOO STORY
This is great, Will! And thanks for posting the stories & photos of your classes. One of the problems I'm having with TPRS is keeping the story short enough to have a text for students to work with later. The question asking to find out where the story is going next is just too much fun.
ReplyDeleteMy "solution" to that is that often I would save the TPRS to the middle of class, so that we really didn't have time to write very much, and then I used the stub the next day in class. That's the lazy way. But if you have an idea where you want the story to go and you stop it once it's got there (like, you stop it after the first conflict) then you have something that students can work with and expand individually or in pairs.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, those are just two techniques that might help address the issue that you brought up. But, as you say, it's so much fun, why not let it go where it will?! You can always cut it down for the follow-up activities. They may complain, but you can explain that they just WRITE TOO MUCH! How often do they get that criticism?!