The art of being a SciTeller

Mahak Katyal

“Once upon a time there was a rabbit. He always bragged about how fast he ran….”

Do you know this story? If you don’t, you are probably wondering what will happen next.

Stories have been part of our childhood for centuries. We have all grown up listening to folktales and folklore from our grandparents. A simple story hooks our attention more than anything else. In fact, our ancestors found stories to be the perfect medium to share information, ideas, and thoughts. Stories were the medium of instruction in gurukuls in ancient times. So why then have we stopped using stories to teach? Stories are not merely meant to entertain, they also educate. Subjects that are perceived to be difficult, like science and math, especially, can find their way into students hearts and minds if we tell stories.

Interrelation between science and stories
So is there a relationship between stories and science?

If you read a story carefully you will find that there is a common element present in both scientific research and the art of storytelling, i.e., looking for the hidden truth or reason. Both science and story involve investigation of some kind – a hypothesis in the case of science and incidents in the case of a story. Thereafter, you can arrive at a conclusion or a result. If you remove the conclusion from a story, the story is incomplete. This holds true even for scientific research. While stories inculcate the important skill of asking “why”, science helps to find the “how” behind a theory and develops logical reasoning in the child.

Moreover, stories help put the abstract facts of science together in a concrete form that makes sense to a child.

Storytelling in the classroom
Why is it important to tell stories in a science classroom?

• Attention grabber: A story is probably the best way to attract the attention of an otherwise inattentive child in the class.
• Fun and effective: As soon as a teacher switches from lecturing a child about random science facts to narrating a story, the child begins to relax. Because he/she is enjoying the narrative, the child remembers the chain of events more precisely.
• Creates a mental organizer in the brain: Each time a concept is told in the form of a story, a child creates a visual map of the story. Information stored in this manner is well organized and interlinked such that a child can make sense of what is taught to him/her.

Here is a basic lesson plan that you can use in your science class to teach the concept of digestion through a story.

You can begin by organizing a brainstorming session in the classroom. Ask students questions about the food they eat and their idea about what happens to the food that they eat. You can also ask them to trace the journey of the food in their body if they know it.

Once they have an idea of the concept, announce that you are going to tell them a short story about a boy who travels inside the body to trace the journey of food. When you tell a story, make sure you narrate it with proper tone and annotation. To make it even more engaging, use finger puppets to narrate the story or you could do a role play in class to depict the story. Before you narrate the story, divide the class into groups. Make sure you repeat key information so that children remember.

After the story is done, you can play a game of round robin and ask each group to narrate one incident from the story. As the children re-tell the story, you can draw it on the blackboard. Once done, explain the digestive system to the students by taking inputs from them. As a formative assessment, you can give pictures of different parts of the digestive system to each group and ask them to put them in the correct order. Alternatively, you can even ask them to write a story where they are the protagonists who take the journey inside the body.

Create an engaging environment in the classroom by becoming a Walt Disney for your students. Try the above lesson plan and see if it works in your classroom. I am sure it will because as the famous storyteller Joe Lambert said, “In the end folks, we ain’t nothing but a song…a story.”

The author is an independent writer and science content developer with experience in designing science curriculum and lesson plans for various schools. She has written science stories for kids. She can be reached at mahakkatyal18@gmail.com.