Two meetings ago we set to discuss the elements and characteristics that should make a story for children. Among other things, we arrived at the conclusion that audience age was determinant in conditioning any possible answer. Thus, it seems necessary to contextualise and specify our audience before advancing on this discussion.
Having in mind that our aim this year would be to teach in primary schools, let us agree on Argentine primary students of English as a foreign language as our expected audience. This settled, then:
What elements should characterise the stories we choose or create for them?
You can join the debate by clicking on the 'comment' button and sharing your opinion with us.
35 comments:
I think that one of the most important elements to bear in mind when writing for our children is the choice of characters. They would particularly like the personification of animals as well as other children being the main characters.
it has to be beard in mind that in our case we as teachers of English have to read "easy" text to our students. I think that reading "goldie is mad" would be more possible than the other books we were enjoying in our classes.I also agree with angelica that the characters are very important in the moment or reading a story. the children have to feel "identified" with the characters or at least to find the lay-out or the illustrations attractive.
laura dambolena.
I don't understand this yet. be patient.
Guadalupe said...
When we choose a story for children it is necessary, from my point of view, that the children amuse themselves. As Laura and Angelica said main characters should be attractive since they catch children's attention and at the same time children could feel identified with their favourite ones.
I think we should choose stories that catch children's attention both for the characters and the plot. A story should have, not necessary all the times, a moral or a message because that could allow us as teacher to talk about values at school
I totally agree with Gisela when she says a story should have a moral or message so we can teach our students about. Probably, it would be more appealing for children if they can find themselves reflected or represented by the characters on the story, but as a future teacher I think we should focus mainly on what we can transmit to our students so it turns significant for their lives. Of course, it will be a lot better if they can amuse themselves while learning.
I agree with all of you. The characters, the plot, the illustrations, the language and the moral are very important elements in children literature. And as teachers, we should be concerned with educating our students, and in order to achieve this task with getting them interested. To add something more in this list of elements, I think that children like fantasy and stories which take place in a magic world. Florencia Gonzalez
When choosing or creating stories for our children students we have to bear in mind some tips to make our story attractive and quickly catching attention. We all know that dealing with children's attention is a primary issue to solve. Characters are very important, animals are among children's favourite. We may choose animals connected with our domestic fauna. Language has to be plain and easy to follow. Colours and illustrations should be appealing with well defined drawings. Stories are an excellent means to introduded values in classroom. So, as you see there are many things to take care of.
I agree with all my classmates. I think that the stories we choose or create for children should have big and colourful illustrations in order to catch children´s attention, the plot should be short and funny since they get bored easily and the stories should have a moral. Morals allow teachers to make students reflect on values and other topics which are interesting.
I agree with all of you. Stories for children should have a moral since making them reflect upon values is something really important. I also agree when you say that animals are among children's favourites. Something to take into account when choosing stories for children are colours and drawings because they help to catch their attention, something that sometimes seems to be difficult.
BELÉN.
hello again. another thing that came to my mind some minutes ago is that the tale or story that we choose for our students should be related to something already mentioned before. by this I mean that we, as teachers, should "prepare" our students to the story having previous activities or conversations about the topic or the story itself.
at least this is what I thought some minutes ago and I wanted to share it with you.
laura dambolena
To begin with, I'm firmely convinced that we, as teachers, must read books to our students. I'm agree with Laura that we, first, should prepare the students for listening a story. What's more it may be more interesting for us to create our own books taking into account the students' s background knowledge, their interets and the use of repetitions and powerful illustrations in order to catch the children's attention. Another important tip to bare in mind, for me, is, as Belén said, that all the stories we chose for reading to our students should have a didactic purpose like a moral to make them reflect about this point. Another essential thing to taking into account is that we are teachers of English and we have to read English stories. Because of that our challenge is harder than teachers of Spanish. So we need to use our imagination and creativity to the maximum to make these stories funy and interesting for the students.
I agree with Silvia. It is very difficult to read stories in English to our students, that's why I think it is important to consider the body language as an useful tool when reading to them. I also think it is necessary , as Laura said, to preapre students for the story we are going to read. It could be useful doing some activities realted to the values we are going to work with.
BELÉN.
As many of my classmates said, characters are vey important. And as stories they should call children’s attention so creativity is an important quality that stories should have.
I agree with most of my classmate’s opinions, particularly with the right choice of characters, which will help to call the children’s attention. However, as Gisela said, stories not always need to have a moral value hidden. Stories may function for many different purposes such as the introduction of a new topic, to learn vocabulary or just reading for pleasure. The important thing is that teachers need to have a clear purpose when reading to children. Teachers also need to bear in mind their students´ age. A same story is not always suitable for different courses.
I think that all the opinions of my classmates are valid because it is important to choose the right characters and also to include a moral to the story, especially when that message transmits values to our students.
I agree with most of my classmates. I also think that when choosing or writing a children's story for our students we need a vivid imagination, creativity and the ability to put ourself in the mind of a child.
I particularly agree with Natalia as regards the didactic value of the stories we should use in our lessons. I mean, I would like to make a distinction between the didactic value and the moral as two different elements in children’s literature. The latter has been mentioned before by many of us because it is very important for conveying values and educating, while the former is related to language which is also very relevant since we are going to be teachers of English. So we should bear in mind that the lexis and topic of the stories are the appropriate to fulfill the objectives of the curriculum. To sum up, we can link the didactic value with the illustrations which are the means to show the meaning of new vocabulary and the topics.Florencia Gonzalez
I agree with most of you. In my opinion, children HAVE to be read. I know it is difficult to have them engaged with stories, especially when they are written in English. But we, as teachers, must choose the appropriate kind of books which catch their attention. Of course, colors and illustrations have a very important role on this matter.
I think fantasy stories are children´s favorite ones. But in my opinion, kids also need to be read stories that show characters and situations which they are in touch with in everyday life, even better if they have a moral.
Of course, as they are little children, texts should be easy to understand.
IVANNA PALAZZETTI
I agree with all of you. All children love stories so we as future teachers should create funny and magic stories to catch children´s attention. The plot should be short and easy to be understood by children. The moral is an important element to bear in mind, too. We as future teachers should help our students to understand that message in the best way. Nancy
I think the stories generally teach a lesson and children always need lots of teaching. At any time, while children are growing they capture all experiences lived by themselves, and given by adults.
Children´s literature should be didactic in order to offer them more opportunities of delightful, sharing, fantasy and entertainment. Sometimes parents use books to help their children to learn how to express their feelings, behaviours and issues about everyday life. Nancy Nieto
I still not agree entirely with the idea that all the books directed to children have to have a moral purpose. We can not only aim to teach children a shared value. I think we also need to encourage students to read for pleasure. In reference to this, I remembered something which has called me attention when I was reading the copies about ideology given by our teacher. Under the subtitle “Moral Purpose and Didacticism” the editor of the paper quoted some words by Harvey Darton who said the following: “By “children’s books” I mean printed works produce ostensibly to give children spontaneous pleasure, and not primary to teach them, not solely to make them good, nor to keep them profitably quiet”. From my point of view, it is important to bear this in mind. Maybe it is not the right idea about the function of children’s literature, but it is interesting because it give us a different way of approaching this issue.
Continuing with Natalia’s comments and what we have discussed in class, reading is an activity which helps children to increase their imagination and to enrich their knowledge of the world. So not always, it has to have a moral in order to teach something.
Continuing with Natalia’s comments and what we have discussed in class, reading is an activity which helps children to increase their imagination and to enrich their knowledge of the world. So not always, it has to have a moral in order to teach something.
In my opinion, Children’s literature involves many issues as my classmates have mentioned previously. When teaching these stories there are certain points to be considered such as the story itself, the specific vocabulary (which should be taught before reading the story) and the context where the story will be read. The didactic point of view (if there is a message “hidden”) is another aspect to take into account because it can open an interesting debate with the students. To sum up, I believe that all these choices are connected with teacher’s ideology so we should be careful how we work with children’s literature and pay special attention to the purpose of teaching these stories.
Cristian Matas.
I agree with Florencia Gonzales. Reading is an interesting activity for children because it helps them to increase their vocabulary and to develop their imagination. Reading could be applied in their free time as a useful activity. Both parents and teachers should encourge children to read frequently.
As regards ideology, I agree with Cristian because teachers should be careful with books because all writing is ideological.We have to take into account the social and cultural comtext because it is suffused with ideology. Nancy Nieto
I agree with most of my classmates. I think that stories should have colourful illustrations, attractive plot and nice characters in order to catch children's attention.
Another aspect to take into account is the didactic purpose that the book should have because through it we can teach values to our students.
Patricia De La LLera
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I notice that most of you agree on the purpose and content of the books we read to students in class. Still, I think that children's literature as a concept goes beyond books alone.
What other ways (besides book reading) can you think of to integrate children's stories into our classes ?
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Not sure if I'm answering to your question, but one thing children love and enjoy much is watching plays; I know by my daughter they do and I was able to assist to one of the plays performed at her school and she and her mates payed attention and listened carefully to the actors. Of course, it is more difficult taking them to a theater than reading a book in class but they may have fun acting a certain play or maybe inventing their own play and performing it.
Renee said:
Reading or listening to tales are not the only ways that children have to let their imagination fly.I am convinced that there are different ways to encourage children to develop creativity.Painting and drawing are activities that kids love to do for expressing feelings and for creating stories. My own children like to draw comic stips and they build very interesting plots and characters. I agree with Silvina when she mentions that children like acting or inventing plays.
Renee Fredes.
I think that besides book reading we have to create an atmosphere according to the book and a pre-reading activity.
I agreed with both Silvina and Reneé about the fact that children like plays. However, as Silvina pointed out, it is difficult to take children to theater. As a result, I good idea would be to make puppet shows in class. Students love that too, and they can also enjoy making the puppets by themselves.
Children can also enjoy stories through poems and classic rhymes. These kind of literature is very engaging, as children love to play with their the rhythm and rhyme.
I meant "...with their rhythm and rhyme."
Sorry!
hi everobody!!! I agree with all of you. kids enjoy plays and rhymes a lot. they enjoy all the aspects of a story: acting, watching, listening and reading stories because they let kids fly away with their imaginations and create different worlds and experiencies. in foreign languages classes those tools can be used for the teaching of almost everything that have to be taught; as a foreign lg can be thaught through any topic. the teacher can let students to choose whether to role-play a story or tale, or to read it, or to listen to an audio, or watching a movie based on the book.
also the teacher has to be aware of the atmosphere of the class, to "control it" because as kids have fun, they can create chaos and the class would be spoiled (the quantity of students is very important too).
the idea of teaching through a tale or story and preparing all the stuff for that have to be "coordinated" with the knowledge that the group or class will accept the activity and keep it controlled from the beggining.
laura dambolena
I agree with you in that kids enjoy plays and classic poems and rhymes. Another thing that kids really enjoy is when teachers retell them stories aloud. I have retold stories to my students and I kept them really interested.
BELÉN GIAMBERARDINI
I agree with my classmates about the use of plays and poems in classroom. I'd like to add that we can also try encourage them to build up their own stories. They can work together creating the plot, the characters and also making the illustrations.
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