- Title
- Storytelling engagement in the classroom: observable behavioural cues of children's story experiences
- Creator
- Mundy-Taylor, Julie
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- The value of storytelling in a busy world, awash with multiple sound bites, myriad visual grabs and a seemingly endless input of information, is recognized and utilized in an increasing number of areas in modern society, including in all levels of education. Narrative is used in all cultures to give meaning to the human experience. When narrative is presented in the form of oral storytelling this meaning making and relevance are enhanced by focused listening and people are captivated by the shared experience that storytelling provides. This thesis addresses a gap in the literature about how children in particular engage with storytelling. In an innovative approach to storytelling research, this thesis systematically examines the observable responses of a group of primary school aged children to a long term programme of storytelling. 88 children across the school grades of Kindergarten, Third and Sixth class participated in 6 storytelling sessions each. This thesis places 12 of the videotaped storytelling sessions under critical scrutiny and analyses every verbal and physical response made by each child in order to measure both their individual and collective engagement with storytelling. In so doing, the thesis canvasses the challenges encountered in conducting such systematic research and utilises action research (Bryman, 2004; Gray, 2004) in the structure of the storytelling project and grounded theory (Dey, 1999; Glaser, 1998; Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Tuetteman, 2003) in the analysis of the collected data. Storytellers who wish to conduct similar research are provided in this thesis with a replicable method and a project template they can adapt to suit their own particular needs. The third part of the thesis is devoted to a detailed examination of what happened to the child participants as they listened to a wide variety of stories. Five clusters of Indicators of Engagement grew out of this research and they are employed as a means of measuring the individual responses to storytelling. The thesis establishes, in an academically rigorous manner, that there is indeed a means of measuring a listener’s engagement with storytelling.
- Subject
- storytelling; engagement; children; indicators
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/939911
- Identifier
- uon:12903
- Rights
- Copyright 2013 Julie Mundy-Taylor
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |