Opening Day: The Story Spine Icebreaker

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

While attending the ADE conference at Full Sail University this summer, I had the good fortune of being able to experience a workshop led by Rebecca Stockley. Rebecca is the improv and acting coach for both Electronic Arts and the Pixar Animation Studios, as well as the founder of the BATS school of improv. On the first day of the conference she led us through a group storytelling activity which I thought would be a fantastic ice breaker for the opening day of school, as well as serve as a great tool for review and assessment in my U.S. History classroom.

The story spine is actually an improv game. Susan, the author of the Improv-A-Mama blogs more about its use in improv here. There are various formats to the story spine, but the one Rebecca used at the conference and the one I duplicated for use in my classroom this week goes as follows:

Once upon a time...
Everyday...
But one day...
Because of that...
Because of that...
Because of that...
Ever since then...
The moral of the story is...

Prior to doing the activity with my students, we as a class recalled our favorite childhood stories (the term "childhood" used loosely with 8th graders). I then introduced them to the story spine and we analyzed how its components were present in many of their favorite animated movies. I then had the students work in small groups of four and five to create their own stories using the story spine format.

After two practice rounds, the students were assigned to create a story with that they could present in front of their classmates. The first component of the story spine was given to them.

"Once upon a time there was a student in Mr. Armstrong's 8th grade class..."

The activity was great in providing my students a preview of the type of collaborative and social activities they'll experience in the classroom throughout the year. While they worked in their groups, I had the opportunity to quietly observe them and see the type of different personalities that were present in the class, as well as gain an impression as to the type of personality the class may have as a whole. Once the students had formulated their stories, each group came to the front of the room and presented. Each of the stories were unique and there was a plenty of laughter and enjoyment to be had from all as we listened to some rather imaginative and engaging stories. The best part the activity twas hearing what each group had come up with as to the moral of the story.

"The moral of the story is don't come to Mr. Armstrong's class late."

"The moral of the story is never be afraid to ask questions."

"The moral of the story is one should not worry about what others think about them."

While doing this activity at the conference, I was struck as to how the story spine could also be used to better help students understand the "story" of what is being taught to them about the people, places, and events we study in class. By using a format similar to the story spine, I am thinking that I may be better able to help my students see and understand the bigger picture of what we are studying. The story spine will of course need to be tweaked so that it will be applicable to actual historical events, but I believe it's form can serve as a positive instructional tool for helping students in my class. I'm especially eager to see what the students come up with as being the "moral" of what they learn from certain events and people in our nation's past.

Story Spine

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