Story Time as a Discussion Strategy

“Push the desks back against the wall and take a seat on the floor,” I instruct my eleventh-grade students. This past year I reimagined my Bible class curriculum and integrated what I call “Bible story time” into my lesson plans. I happen to teach Bible class, so the lessons are actual Bible passages, but the story time concept is a reading discussion and engagement strategy that I use to change up the routine in my class and access different kinds of learners.

Primary school teachers more regularly move students around their classroom, but sometimes secondary teachers forget that we need to move around a bit to see a text from a different angle - sometimes literally. The story time strategy makes physical rearrangement mandatory. I choose to have students sit on the floor with cushions, but moving desks into a different arrangement could have the same effect. The important element is that somehow, when we are talking about a text, the physical grouping of our class looks different as we come together. One of the benefits of this movement is that kinesthetic learners engage their attention as they settle onto pillows scattered around the room and can adjust their position through the lesson. Auditory learners perk up as their learning style is centered, but it’s also a good opportunity to provide a healthy challenge for students to listen and engage without slides or notes.

Because biblical literature ranges from narrative to poetry to discourse, this story time strategy can cover all types of reading content. After I read the passage aloud, students identify the type and genre and summarize key elements before we dig into discussion of the doctrine presented in the passage. Speaking aloud ideas in a group to represent reading comprehension is a skill with so many layers of benefits in the classroom. As a verbal rough draft of their ideas, a first comment in a discussion gives students practice forming a content summary, identifying evidence, and analyzing details for teachers to formatively assess.

In primary school classrooms, where teachers are working more with the foundational skills of content summary and evidence identification, one student may begin the discussion by providing a few sentences of summary which can be followed up by other students adding details that may have been overlooked. While evaluating how well students select details, the teacher can direct the discussion by asking value questions about the information provided: Is that detail important to the plot? What have we left out of our discussion? How does this character support the development of this idea?

When students move into secondary classrooms, their discussions advance beyond summary as they use evidence to analyze themes and motives. My classroom is at the high school level, and I have mostly missionary kids who think they know every detail of every Bible story. However, I get to use discussions as an opportunity to teach intellectual humility as students hear peers engage with a text they think they know everything about.

Our role as educators is to excite engagement with material. Whether you are reading a Bible verse, novel, scientific case study, or current event news story in class to achieve your learning objectives, giving space for students to share ideas can not only scaffold reading comprehension, but it can also develop active listening skills and empathy for the ideas of others.

Any classroom is susceptible to the silly or shallow comments that can derail or stall a discussion. One of the most important modeling strategies I can have ready is to redirect when a student makes an unhelpful comment. With the goal of encouraging growth, it is critical to not shame students for anything they might say but to also be firm in stopping inappropriate comments.

When we think through our instructional strategies in class, teachers are primed to communicate to students the learning objectives; yet we must also communicate the transformational elements in the methods we use. My students know we are discussing a particular doctrine related to the text and practicing our exegetical and hermeneutical (reading) strategies in this discussion format; additionally, with this discussion model, I articulate the ways they are being kind in building on the ideas of peers and respecting those with whom they disagree.

“So what?” I ask my students as we reach the last step of our discussion of a passage, “How can you live differently today because of what we’ve just learned?” Often I’ll pass out a small scrap of paper for them to fill out as a personal exit slip naming one person they can affirm, a random act of kindness they can do, or any individualized response that’s ungraded but connected to our discussion. Learning isn’t about the final grade but the transformed lives, and hopefully our discussion strategies are supporting both.

Laura Hewett
Laura teaches Bible at Black Forest Academy in Kandern, Germany, where she has lived for the past nine years with the exception of a sabbatical spent in Christchurch, New Zealand. She has adventured around three continents and over a dozen countries after breaking her back during her first year of service overseas. Her passion for teaching and discipleship couldn’t be stopped by paralysis.

Photo Credits
Elementary Kids and Teacher. Shutterstock. Resized.
Group of Students. Shutterstock. Resized.
Group Reading Together. Shutterstock. Resized.