Anne continues here description of how she starts the year:
By the time we have gone through every questionnaire, the students have acquired a lot of expressions like has, wants, needs, goes, likes, sees, says, eats, drinks, plays, etc. Now they are ready to start using the story scripts.
Each of my scripts has a few phrases at the top. Those are the phrases that my students haven’t seen yet, so I pull them out and translate them for the kids before we do the story. Sort of a glossary in advance. The words are not connected in any way to a curriculum or scope of sequence document, so that might be a problem for some people.
The most important thing about all of this is that there really can’t be more than a few new things in the story. It is not a good idea to use a script without having gone through it carefully to see how much of it will be new for the students, adjusting it accordingly.
The details (who, where, how many, what, when) are variables: the students provide them. If you want to just use Story Listening (Beniko Mason), you could also just put in your own details, with names of your students and town and other familiar things, without having to get into soliciting details from the class.
One final thing about the scripts: most of them are random stories born of someone’s (often mine, sometimes a student’s) strange imagination. For me, letting students give me the (underlined) details is non-negotiable. It’s where the personalization and ownership come in.
New characters, places, storylines get invented that follow the class throughout the year and into the following years. Ben, it very much reminds me of your work with OWI and the Invisibles. It is the same principle operating in a different form.
Best to you all,
Anne
Learn more about Anne’s scripts here: