Theory presentation

 

Storyline approach

 

In the Netherlands at the university we get some classes about the storyline approach. I’ve spent time at two different universities and both also have assignments for which you have to work with the storyline approach. I’ve used the approach a total of 3 times for assignments. Some of my mentors were familiar with it. One was not. When talking about it with my mentors and classmates who were also working on the assignment one big issue always came up: it costs a lot of time to prepare. This has stopped most teachers from using this in the classroom. They can’t find the time to prepare the storyline approach.

So what is it and why is it that it costs a lot of time?
The basis of the storyline approach is a theme around which activities are made. Within this theme the teacher provides the start of a story. The important element for the theme and story is that it is relatable for the children. As teacher you take the children along the story with activities. These activities can have subject integration, meaning that multiple subjects are combined. For example math and language, or arts with maths etc. The options for this are endless.
‘’The teacher uses the storyline approach to invite reality into the classroom’’ (Vos et al., 2007). This quote from the Dutch book ‘Verhalend ontwerpen, een draaiboek’ (Storyline approach, a script) highlights what is important about the theme/story. Examples given in the book are a baby polar bear that got lost or starting a pet store with the class. The latter of these examples will be used further down below.

Just using a story based on reality does not make it the storyline approach yet. We still have two more important characteristics to cover. One of which is that the teacher doesn’t give the children a lot of information. What I mean by that, the teacher is not standing in front of the classroom for an X amount of time telling children what to do. Instead the teacher asks the children all kinds of questions. These questions are used to make the children think and then actively work on their assignment. In case of the pet store the questions were related to the looks and feel of the animals the children wanted in the pet store. The children had to make the animals themselves. The teacher would ask question like: With what materials are you going to make the animal? What form does its body have? Is it more an egg form or a circle? What does the animal feel like?
It is does questions that are used to get the children to think about what they are going to do. These questions can be used at first to start a conversation and open the new ‘lesson’. After that you can use those questions on a much smaller scale with small groups or individuals. Either to encourage them to take a step further in their skills or to get them a bit more on track and to think more about what they are doing.

The last part of the storyline approach is the story itself. It isn’t just one lesson and you’re done. It’s multiple ‘episodes’ spread out over a day and\or a week. Maybe in the morning you open with talking about starting a pet store followed by having the children making animals to follow this up in the afternoon or the next day with designing the actual store. All those individual episodes require you as a teacher to be able to ask the questions and have materials ready.

There’s a lot of preparation and thought going into the first time you do this as a teacher. A lot of the time teachers don’t have the time (or say they don’t) because of all the other things they have to do. They still have other subjects to prepare, administration to do, meetings to attend etc. This is the reason that always comes back of why other students and myself don’t see this being used in schools. This is a shame because children can really be motived to work on these kinds of activities. And if they’re motivated they’ll learn a lot better (Alkema et al., 2015).


Sources

Alkema, E., Kuipers, J., Tjerkstra, W., & Lindhout, C. (2015). Meer dan onderwijs (8ste ed.). Koninklijke Van Gorcum.

Vos, E., Dekkers, P., & Reehorst, E. (2007). Verhalend ontwerpen 1–2 Draaiboek (3de ed.). Noordhoff.