The long-term goal of social studies education is to prepare young people to become citizens in a democratic society. However, there is relatively little guidance about which teaching and learning strategies will help students acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions needed to promote responsible citizenship (Cuban 1991). Storypath, an approach used in Scotland under the name Storyline, is a powerful tool for achieving these aims. Storypath is both a process for facilitating learning and a structure for organizing the curriculum.
Storypath uses the basic components of a story—setting, characters, and plot—to organize the social studies curriculum into meaningful and memorable learning experiences. The story structure enables students to become active participants in the development and unfolding of the story's plot. It also pushes students to apply their knowledge in real settings, while exercising their resourcefulness and imagination. As a result of their experiences, students develop many of the skills and habits of mind required for active citizenship.
Setting the Scene
My experience in teaching a Storypath unit on the early people of the Pacific Northwest Coast illustrates how students respond to the process. In addition to my job as a college professor, I recently taught an academically and ethnically diverse group of 6th graders at an inner-city school in Seattle.
I began the Storypath unit by explaining that we were going to create a story about the people who lived on the Pacific Northwest Coast—Seattle's own area—a long time ago. In the Storypath, I told them, we would create a scene for the story and the characters, who would later be involved in critical events. This brief explanation led to the first step of this Storypath—reading a vivid description of the environment of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
To help students think about this region, we discussed its geography, climate, and types of vegetation. This discussion helped students to form a clear picture of the place in their minds. Next, the class created the scene on a frieze or mural, based on the important features of the description they had read about and discussed.
Students met in groups to create various elements of the scene. As the scene developed, students negotiated the placement of various geographic features (mountains, the coastline, and Puget Sound) and the configuration of evergreens, deer, bears, and seagulls to ensure that the scene emerged as a cohesive picture. It was important to me that students not just explore their conception of the setting, but that they also develop their social skills by working with one another.
To encourage students to develop their vocabulary and think more deeply about the scene, I asked them to create a "word bank" of terms and phrases important to the scene. Students then used the word bank to write descriptive paragraphs about the place they had created. My goal in doing this was to ensure that students' language development occurred naturally and was based on something they had created themselves.
Cultural Foundations
To help students prepare for the task of developing the characters, I posed the question: "What would people need to survive in an environment such as this?" The students identified food, clothing, and shelter, among other things. I used their categories to ask other questions, such as, "What kind of food would one find in this environment? How would people travel from place to place? How would the environment influence the kind of shelters that people might have? What kind of clothing would people probably have?"
In leading the discussion, I tried hard to keep the responsibility for the answers with the students. At first they wanted me to tell them the answers, but by constantly relating the questions to the setting that students had just created, I reinforced the fact that they already knew a great deal about the subject. Slowly their confidence grew as they realized that I was not looking for the "one right answer."
As students began to construct their understanding of a culture in this environment, we moved to the next step of the Storypath—creating the characters. I began by asking, "Who might live in this environment?" We brainstormed a list of the kind of people who might have lived there a long time ago. Throughout the process, I asked questions to deepen students' conceptual understanding about the people and that place.
Students were now ready to create characters for their Storypath. To shape their thinking about possible characters, I asked them to decide on the following information: name, age, birthdate, physical features, other family members, personality characteristics, special skills, and leisure activities. Many of the boys created young men of 19 or 20 who were excellent hunters. Two of the girls created twin sisters who were leaders in the community. Other characters included fishermen, herbalists, a storyteller, a chief, and a shaman.
Students not only wrote about their Storypath characters but they also created visual models in the form of paper dolls. Referring to their list of the types of clothing that people of that time would wear, pupils used felt, burlap, cedar bark, and construction paper to create the characters. By both writing about and creating visual models of the characters, students were able to demonstrate their understanding in two different modes, verbal and visual.
Once the characters were finished, students introduced them to the class. Over a two-week period, each lesson began with three or four students introducing their characters and answering questions about them from the class. At first, students were reluctant to say much about their characters or to ask probing questions, even though I tried to facilitate discussion by asking a few questions myself. Eventually, however, the students became more involved, asking appropriate questions and elaborating on their character introductions.
Developing a Social Context
To deepen their understanding of the cultural context, students discussed possible roles that their characters might play in the community. They were asked to brainstorm a list of jobs that would have been needed. To provide a structure, I gave students an information sheet in which they were asked to determine the jobs, the necessary skills, how their character learned to do the job, and any special tools needed. This led students to investigate textbooks, encyclopedias, and other books depicting the Northwest Coast people during that time. I also asked students to think about who depended on their characters and who, in turn, each character depended on. This led to interesting discussions about community interdependence, how people acquire their positions in the community, and the importance of special skills.
Our discussion of jobs and community interdependence included an unexpected conversation about gender roles. Students were curious about why men and women had certain roles in their cultures and how that distinction came to exist. Because the discussion was set in the context of the Storypath, students had a common reference point. They could talk about specific characters with reference to jobs or family roles, and everyone understood. When planning the Storypath, I had not anticipated a discussion of gender roles, but when the issue arose, I realized that it was important to deal with it.
This sort of occurrence is not unusual once a Storypath gets under way. In fact, one of the vital features of Storypath is the teachable moment, an unexpected event that, when brought out for students to examine, sheds light on a relevant social studies concept. Being alert to these unique opportunities keeps Storypath interesting and challenging for the teacher.
Confronting Critical Incidents
As the Storypath unfolded, two critical incidents served as especially powerful learning experiences. The first occurred when I asked a colleague to come to class one day as a Russian trader. He knocked on the door, and the student designated as leader of the community answered. The trader introduced himself as a sea captain from Russia. He said that he had come to trade tools, buttons, and beads for fur and native art. The artwork in question had been created by the students and reflected traditional designs of the Northwest Coast people.
As the students negotiated the trades, some began to question the value of various items, whether to trust the trader, and what would happen to their community if some people traded and others did not. After the trader departed with some of the artwork, students expressed doubts about whether these trades had been in their best interest. This role-play served to raise crucial issues about trading, trust, and the ways a culture changes as a result of commerce.
The second critical incident came toward the end of the Storypath. I wrote a treaty based on the Medicine Creek Treaty and demanded that the native people sign it. It demanded that the people move onto a reservation, give up their way of life, learn farming, send their children to boarding school, and stop speaking their own language. The class was incensed. For an hour we debated the moral and ethical dimensions of such a mandate. The students were eloquent in defense of their way of life and outraged that the government would make such demands.
I believe that discussing the government edict helped students develop empathy for the Northwest Coast people, a critical view of government policy, and a commitment to justice and equity as essential ingredients of a democratic society. The discussion developed as it did because the students had come to identify with their imaginary community, both intellectually and emotionally. I doubt that their response would have been as intense if they had not been active participants in the community.
After spending a month working with these students, I had to return to my responsibilities at the university. To bring closure to the Storypath, we organized a ceremony for my leaving. We discussed the possible features of a parting ceremony and then conducted the ceremony as we believed the Northwest Coast people might have conducted it.
Shortly afterward, the students began their research for a culminating project about the people of the Northwest Coast. They visited local museums, listened to guest speakers, viewed videotapes, and did library research. They now possessed a meaningful context for building an understanding of the people of this region. The final activity was a report on a topic selected by each student. These reports, which included written, visual, and oral components, allowed students to compare and contrast their Storypath experience with their research.
Advantages of Storypath
Storypath offers several advantages compared to more traditional approaches to social studies:
First, Storypath is an integrative, rather than subject-based, approach to curriculum. It offers many opportunities to link various parts of the curriculum into a coherent whole. In the Northwest Coast Storypath, for example, students examined the interplay between geography and culture. As the story unfolded, they also examined economic and psychological principles, gender roles, social issues relating to family and occupation, and social justice. Because students view problems with a multidisciplinary perspective, they become better prepared to deal with the multifaceted issues they'll confront as citizens in a democratic society.
The Storypath strategy also fosters democratic values by strengthening students' abilities to work cooperatively and negotiate solutions with others. In our Storypath, students negotiated job roles, a trade agreement, and a system for selecting a leader. With a teacher's guidance, students learn to respond to each development with reasoned arguments, to build on one another's ideas, and to negotiate acceptable compromises. As they collaborate to create policies for governing and resolving conflicts in the imaginary communities, they gain valuable experience in consensus building. In the process, they begin to acquire the confidence, flexibility, and resourcefulness that are vital to their role as citizens.
Finally, Storypath offers numerous opportunities for students to directly experience the content and to draw on their prior knowledge and beliefs. They are continually called on to connect what they already know to the developments and issues currently being discussed. In the Northwest Coast Storypath, for example, students created a network of occupations that were based on what they already knew about the natural resources of a particular locality and what they knew about how basic human needs are met. They also debated the government treaty by referring to their own personal values, which were intensified by the direct experience of living in this imaginary community.
The process of sharing prior knowledge and experience is vitally important in classrooms that are culturally or academically diverse. Building on students' personal experiences, especially when it is clear that these experiences are valued, is crucial to the development of all learners.
When captured by the power of the story and the significance of the issues, most students respond with surprising creativity and reveal an impressive reservoir of knowledge. Thus, the Storypath strategy opens a new range of possibilities for learning and enjoyment.
