Chapter 4 “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”: Foundations and Methods for Revitalising Story Reading for Children
In: Storytelling: Global Reflections on NarrativeSearch for other papers by Phyllis Hastings in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
I examine the need for self-building throughout the educational process and see interactive engaged story-reading as a basis for this development, with both content and method based on these, often invisible, dimensions of growth. The first section deals with the development of selfhood, looking at the essential self (identity); the self in relation to others (empathy); and the self in the world (engagement and responsibility). It also looks at important aspects of the person’s actions in the world, including value development; emotional awareness; and imaginative thinking. All of these are considered to be foundations of growth, which in the past were seen to be the responsibility of a broad village. Today, given the severe limitations of this village in terms of child-raising, schools must consciously see themselves as playing a role in development of the selfhood of children and youth. The second section considers how engaged interactive storytelling can become an important means of nurturing these aspects of self-development. It examines the teacher’s role in the process as it differs from traditional images. It transforms Scholes’s three stages of the reading-responding process by including experiential as well as analytical responses as the story-listeners make sense of the literary work.