Museum of Tolerance
Oral History Activity
Oral history has brought a multitude of lessons, stories, and factoids to our current knowledge of the past. Let us continue to use oral history traditions through a lesson that encourages pupils to discover and appreciate where they...
Curated OER
A Storytelling Festival
Students explore the native cultures of the Americas, to learn some aspects of oral storytelling, and to share their knowledge with others. They, in groups, write a story that should say something important about the culture from which...
Curated OER
Storytelling: Oral Traditions Learning Center
Students explore the oral traditions. In this storytelling lesson, students compare and contrast stories from the cultural traditions of Alaska and Hawaii.
US House of Representatives
House History Comes Alive
New ReviewHow reliable is oral history? The resource uses the oral history website to help academics understand the pros and cons of using recollections to teach others. Scholars complete a worksheet, draft a letter to a representative, and...
Smithsonian Institution
Dia de los Muertos: Honoring our Ancestors Through Community Celebration
Oral storytelling has been an important part of every culture. The time-honored practice uses stories as a conduit for a culture's values and customs from one generation to the next. Keep the tradition going with a family interview...
Curated OER
Storytellers Past and Present
Students read and discuss an article about Olga Loya, a modern storyteller. They watch a videotaped performance of a story and then create a storytelling experience for a story of their choice to share with the class.
Curated OER
A Listening Doll: Create Traditional Native American Storyteller Dolls
In this wonderful cross-curricular lesson plan, your youngsters will learn about Pueblo Indian storyteller dolls by creating their own! They discuss the tradition of story telling, especially in reference to Native Americans. Consider...
Curated OER
Those Fabulous Fables
A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...
Curated OER
Storytelling: Performance and Art Learning Center
Tenth graders explore the process of telling stories without words. In this literature lesson, 10th graders watch a music video performance made by Alaska Native students, and then examine art objects that may be used to tell a story,...
Curated OER
Storytelling: Writers' Workshop Learning Center
Evaluating a variety of narrative texts can help build strong writers. Pupils identify plot elements and their relation to personal experience, then apply what they gleaned from the class discussion to create their own narratives.
Curated OER
Storytelling of the Four Tribes of Nevada
Learners work in groups to identify the major characters and events found in a Nevada Native American folklore story. Each of the groups takes on the role of a different tribe, and they are given a story from that tribe's oral history....
Curated OER
Telling a Story
Writers explore storytelling and focus in on verb tenses. They will work with a partner to generate a story and then switch partners and retell the story. They also complete past perfect continuous and past continuous verb tense worksheets.
University of Arizona
Yoruba Legends: Southern Nigeria
Explore legends and storytelling with your learners. After listening to some legends, pupils work collaboratively and then individually to come up with original legends about animals.
Florida Alliance for Arts Education
Theatre Arts
What skills do storytellers employ to bring to life the characters and events in their tales? After listening to a recording of a Haitian folk tale, class members consider how tone of voice, pace, and gestures can be used to enliven a...
Curated OER
Retelling Stella Louella's Runaway Book: Point of View
Stella Louella’s Runaway Book launches a study of point of view and storytelling. After reading the tale, class members retell the story from the point of view of another character. The scripted plan, developed by a teacher candidate,...
Curated OER
Pizzaz!...Story Boxes
Students tell stories, using an oral, free-flow method. The stories can then be literally transcribed or a retold version/interpretation of them can be written down after the telling. High-beginner ESL level. A terrific speaking skills...
Curated OER
Story Starters
Learners orally tell different types of stories using the assistance of props. For more advanced students, stories may be told according to a specific genre, or the story may have to include a given condition, setting, situation or theme.
Curated OER
History: An African American Cultural Celebration
Students prepare and organize a cultural celebration of African migration and immigration. Working in groups or individually, they research topics and present the information, including dance demonstrations, instrumental or vocal...
Curated OER
Practice Makes Perfect
And the consensus says...Teach your class to use peer feedback to refine public speaking skills. They cut out a magazine picture and develop an oral story about it to present to the class. They share several meaningful objects with the...
Curated OER
Storytelling
Eighth graders retell stories to peers and the entire class. In this storytelling lesson, 8th graders research short stories and select a short story to retell. Students rewrite the stories in their own words and tell it aloud.
Curated OER
Folklore and Oral History
Students listen to a lecture about the tradition of story telling and oral history. They research three examples of African American and/or Negro Leagues oral tradition. they work in groups of four, and decide on one example from their...
Curated OER
Could You Repeat That?
Students participate in an oral story telling activity designed to show how story embellishments occur. They read "Beowulf" and identify incongruities that suggest additions and embellishments over the years.
Curated OER
Epic Improvisation
Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: A Guided Tour
Albert Bierstadt's painting Wind River Country shows viewers how a reader progresses through a story. Your class studies the light and dark areas, how the eye moves across the painting, and what attracts the audience to the work, and...