I was talking with Diana Noonan this weekend and she told me that a child of 12 can pay attention for 12 minutes, 11 year olds for 11 minutes, etc. – one minute for each year of life. If that is true, we can conclude that the longest we should go on the Ten Minute Deal is going to be 15 minutes for sophomores and 14 for 9th graders.
The next time I see her I’ll ask her for more details, where that research is from, whether it applies in storytelling classes or in other subjects as well, if it’s just general research on brain breaks, etc.
But it sure blows a hole in the idea that we can spend the entire period on a story. I wish I’d known that a long time ago, and it makes me again learn to trust my gut when thinking of new things in class to make storytelling better and more effective.