Employing autoethnography as methodology, this study details the promise and problems from my fourteen years as a classroom teacher and nine years as a storytelling teacher at the secondary level. It juxtaposes these experiences using the storytelling and storymaking processes found in process drama and dramatic inquiry. With dramatic inquiry, it examines how story is used to sustain the inquiry of students as they engage in the fictional world not as passive listeners, but as active agents or co-constructors of drama worlds (O’Neill, 1995).
This is a critical study of how my identity as a professional storyteller and storytelling teacher has changed as a result of studying and teaching using pedagogies known as process drama (Heathcote, 1984; O’Neill, 1982) and dramatic inquiry (Edmiston, 2009). These methods of teaching employ improvisation and teacher-in-role (Heathcote, 1984) to co-construct and imagine in a drama world (O’Neill, 1995). As a storyteller, I have viewed storytelling within a limited “organized storytelling” (Stone, 1999) context with fixed rules and set descriptions of the essential story elements including tale, teller, and audience (listener). This study challenges these traditional assumptions of how story has been used in storytelling introducing other contexts, namely dramatic contexts, for classroom learning. It also questions how and why organized storytelling privileges the told story when story is used for classroom learning and explores how storymaking can be included in performed stories.
It shows through autoethnography and thick description my transition from storytelling teacher to one who purposefully incorporates more – namely storymaking in my classes, process drama and dramatic inquiry. In addition to performance storytelling, this work values storymaking (King, 1993) and a different form of performance (Peterson & Langellier, 2004) found in “everyday narratives.” Applying these everyday narratives to classroom contexts when students are using process drama or dramatic inquiry, the teacher narratives are changed. This study examines how teachers can use the five dimensions of narrative as outlined by (Ochs & Capps, 2001) to improve their instruction. It details how improvisation (Heathcote, 1984) and facilitation by the teacher (and students) can expand the learning that comes from using narratives.
Most of all, this work uses writing and telling stories to improve my teaching practice. Honest and situational examples in the form of scenarios and narratives highlight and emphasize my teaching. It is about the personal change in my teaching; it is about how I am identified and how I identify myself when using stories.