Stories That Shape Us
A conversation with middle school English and social studies teachers on the power of storytelling. In our English and social studies classrooms, stories function as more than texts on a page or events in a timeline. They’re also a lens through which students can learn to understand the world. By learning to question, interpret, and tell stories with care, students develop the tools to become informed, empathetic citizens. They become capable of understanding the past and shaping the narratives that will define the future. We spoke with our middle school English and social studies faculty, Julie McMillan (5th & 6th Grade Social Studies), Brad Hoge (5th & 6th Grade English), Aadi Annamalai (7th & 8th Grade Social Studies), and Kevin Wood (7th & 8th Grade English), to explore the roles storytelling plays in all of their classes.
22 EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL OUR DAY
What role do you think storytelling plays in your individual subjects? JULIE: “I’m constantly telling stories when I teach social studies, sharing stories I’ve heard over time, and talking about different stories so that students aren’t just relying on textbooks. I also incorporate things like Storytime with Mrs McMillan. One year the class even came up with a little jingle for it; it was hilarious. In past years I’ve also had students write historical fiction. They were graded both on historical accuracy and on their writing.” KEVIN: “A lot of what we’re doing [in class] is slowing down and really looking at a story, focusing on the details, the how and the why… Sometimes we draw out a philosophy or expand on a story and say, alright well this story is about friendship, but what does it say about friendship or what does it say about loyalty? Then we use the story’s components like characters, their actions, dialogue, the way certain characters are treated etc. and apply those ideas to our own lives. In some ways, for better or for worse, they [stories] act as a kind of instruction manual for how we understand and move through the world.”
How do stories help humanize history? KEVIN: “We’re reading Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, in one of my classes. It’s about a Black family in Mississippi in the 1930’s, and just recently, we were talking about different characters and trying to understand why they do certain things. Do we agree? And if we don’t, why do they [the characters] feel so strongly? One of them is a character who’s thought of as a good guy and who is generally supportive, but there comes a point in the story where he draws a line that feels uncharacteristically cold and harsh. We find out that it’s ultimately out of fear for his family’s safety. We might disagree with him at that moment, but can we see why he feels that way? It’s a good exercise in understanding why people do what they do. One of the big themes we’ve been talking about is that trying to create change is going to be uncomfortable and potentially unpopular, and sitting with those uncomfortable ideas is a big part of perspective-taking and understanding.” AADI: “We did a unit where I had seventh graders interview someone with wisdom to offer…The idea was to have this conversation as well as talk about what it means to interview people and why we do it. It was a way to get them to know their family more but also to actually be historians. In that process, a lot of these stories were refugee stories, one related to the Holocaust…. a lot came for economic opportunity, some are personal business success stories. I asked them to record 30 minutes and I listened to all of it. Objectively this is [their subject’s] truth. I asked the kids: why do you think we did this? What might people learn from it? I explained that this is how you accumulate knowledge. If someone wanted to know what life was like [in a particular time period]…, they might listen to one of their interviews, it wouldn't be the only thing they listen to, but it would definitely be an important piece of the puzzle.”
How are the stories we tell about the world connected to what’s happening in the world? AADI: “In history, the word ‘story’ is already there, but I try to help students actually see history as stories. They’re used to reading stories in English classes, and that helps them think more critically about who is speaking, what’s actually happening, and why people might feel or act the way they do. Those are core historical skills. At the same time, I want them to learn how to communicate their ideas effectively, like how to be strong storytellers while still being rooted in fact.” BRAD: “In my classes, students write both fiction and nonfiction, and I give them a lot of choice in what they write about. When we did op-eds, for example, they wrote
about real news stories. Right now, students are working on nonfiction projects where they can choose topics from science, history, or anything they’re interested in. That connection to real-world topics makes them much more engaged in the writing process.” KEVIN: “When we read Roll of Thunder, I talk about the Tulsa Race Massacre and explain that the real event was even more extreme than what appears in the novel. For a long time, it wasn’t studied or talked about, and later historians had to interview people before those firsthand accounts were lost. It works both ways; some students connect with the story first and then learn the history, while others need the history to understand why the story matters. Literature provides emotion, and history provides context. It can be really grounding.” OUR DAY EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL 23
Why is interdisciplinarity important in students’ learning? BRAD: “When they walk out into the world, they're not going to say, ‘Okay, on this block is English, and this block is…’ What they're learning is that we break things apart because it helps us focus on things, but really it's about whole brain thinking and compassion.” JULIE: “The world is messy and it's getting messier. We are teaching students how to receive that information, condense it, and then process it to figure out what is real and what is not. What do we already know? Hopefully, we know more than what we’re just staring at online.” KEVIN: “It's not just that we do this so they can connect English and history, but that they develop an understanding of how to think critically about everything. I tell the students: it's like doing mental push-ups. For example, you don't have to know how to analyze a poem to survive, but we're going to go through this process so that when people are communicating with you, you can make sense of it and communicate back.”
What kind of thinkers are successful English and social studies students? BRAD: “The goal is empathy. The goal is connecting to the world and to each other, and when we find synergy between the humanities and English, students are living and practicing that. The curriculum that connects it all is looking at different approaches toward empathy. Having a historical context, applying that to what's happening today, and thinking about issues in their own lives and how it impacts their families and communities is important.” AADI: "I want to prepare students to critically and empathetically engage with the world around them. If five or ten years from now, they pick up a newspaper (provided they still exist) and look at it, they shouldn’t know everything about the world, but I want them to ask the right questions and find the information for themselves. I don’t want them to feel lost and think ‘I never learned about this topic’, but rather ‘I may not have learned this, but I should still be able to engage with it in a significant way.’ That's my hope.”
24 EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL OUR DAY