Teaching Channel Talks Episode 112: Using Storytelling to Build Connection and Curiosity (w/ Liza Newell)

Dr. Wendy Amato 00:00
Welcome to Teaching Channel Talks. I’m your host, Wendy Amato, and as often as I can, I jump into conversations about topics that matter in education. And what’s more important than helping students make connections to ideas or to have understanding that lasts? In this episode, it’s my pleasure to welcome Liza Newell.

She is a performance artist who uses storytelling, song, puppetry, dance, and more to explore the beauty and complexity of the human spirit. And I think that’s what we need in education. Liza, welcome. Thank you so much. Tell me, what is a story? What are we talking about when we talk about storytelling?

Liza Newell 00:48
Well, you know, I explore storytelling through the oral tradition.

So when I am telling stories, I’m pulling from a really deep well of fairy tale and folk tale and mythology. And I filter those stories through me and share them with live listeners. Storytelling is an art form that takes so many forms.

You can share stories over dinner. You can share stories catching up with a friend. You can hear stories at bedtime. I just love the universality of it.

Dr. Wendy Amato 01:26
I think there are many people who have a preconceived notion of what a story is, and they might even reduce it to that bedtime story or a storybook. But you have helped me understand how much bigger storytelling is. What do you think the misconceptions are about storytelling?

Liza Newell 01:45
I do think that people can reduce storytelling to bedtime stories or maybe something that’s just simply for entertainment. And it’s true that stories exist in those forms, but storytelling is humanity’s oldest form of expression, and it is woven into our everyday lives.

As people, we have always approached story as a way to understand our own particular lived experience within the larger context of humanity.

Dr. Wendy Amato 02:26
In education, teachers sometimes feel like a story is an example, but I would suggest that a story is a metaphor. It’s way bigger than an example. What are some elements of a real story? What are the ingredients that make a story?

Liza Newell 02:48
There are a couple of building blocks that you can lean on when you’re developing a story.

A story happens in a specific place, and it happens to a specific person or group of people. So you have your setting and your characters, and that is what you establish for people to be drawn into the experience of your story so they can start imagining themselves in relationship to the setting and the characters.

Then a good story will have a moment where expectation and reality collide. I think this is why we can use story to help us understand life’s complexities—because life doesn’t go the way we plan.

When we turn to story and we see those moments where expectation and reality collide, we’re given an opportunity to see how people overcome challenges, learn to work together, or how an unsung hero rises up. From that moment of conflict, there is a resolution that shows growth. Through that growth, we reflect on our bravery—what it means when we are brave enough to use our own unique voices to stand up for what we believe in or to make changes in the world around us.

Dr. Wendy Amato 04:23
The language you’re using sounds very familiar to the education community, and that’s part of why I’m especially excited to have this conversation with you.

Liza, teachers have a wide range of students in front of them. Between content areas and grades, there are always features of differentiation that teachers have to consider. How do you adjust a story to match the audience in front of you—by age or interest, for example?

Liza Newell 04:57
What I find with younger audiences when I’m telling stories is that if I can rely on stories that bring the entire world to life, I start diversifying who and what is delivering messages to the listener.

So if I were telling a story to a group of younger students, I might use a fairy tale or folktale tradition where the trees are alive and the stones are alive. That feels important for any age, but especially for younger students. I think it enhances connections they might already feel to the world around them. The kinship they feel with a pet or an animal could come alive in the story and make them feel like they have a more personal connection.

Dr. Wendy Amato 06:00
We know that storytelling can be a powerful tool. It helps students make sense of ideas, develop empathy, and build confidence. Harvard Business Publishing and the Association for Psychological Science both remind us that learning outcomes can be improved through storytelling.

How can you help educators connect to the storytelling community? How does somebody find you? Or how does somebody grow the kinds of skills that you’ve been honing?

Liza Newell 06:34
Yeah, you know, there are a lot of workshops available. I lead workshops on storytelling development and how to use it as a tool in everyday life.

I think what I have learned is that to become a good storyteller, you really need to first become a good listener. Pay really close attention to the life that is unfolding around you.

To your earlier question about how a teacher could make connections across different ages and students, the closer teachers pay attention, the more they’ll be able to draw on those nuances and infuse their stories with bits and pieces of what they observe.

Dr. Wendy Amato 07:25
As we offer advice to the education community to help tap into storytelling as a skill, would you share how you originally connected to it?

Liza Newell 07:38
Of course. I started going to a storytelling festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, when I was eight years old. When I was little, I could hardly sit still for anything. I think it was because, in part, my imagination was so active.

When I went to the storytelling festival, the setup was that you sat under these huge tents listening to stories all day. That was the first place where I felt every aspect of myself engaged—like my full imagination was welcomed. Suddenly, I wasn’t just sitting under a big tent. I was traveling through Zanzibar or at a Boy Scout camp in the 1950s.

As an entry into the imagination, storytelling is such a powerful tool. The storytellers I heard at that festival were the first people I truly believed in. I remember telling my mom, I really want to be a storyteller when I grow up. And she said, Do it.

Dr. Wendy Amato 08:52
I hope every young person gets that kind of support—where we’re told to follow a passion. It could change a lot of things in the world.

Absolutely. When we think about children and the challenges that teachers face in the classroom now, sometimes it’s all about behavior management. I can’t get the kids to sit still. They won’t listen. You’re addressing this in a very specific and concrete way. Do you have advice related to behavior management for classroom teachers?

Liza Newell 09:27
I think I could speak from the perspective of trying to hold the attention of a room as a storyteller.

And what I find—and I’m sure many teachers feel this as well—is that teaching and storytelling are multidimensional art forms. You’re not just standing and speaking; you’re using all of yourself to engage the people in front of you.

When I am telling a story, I’m thinking about my body language and what that is communicating. I’m thinking about my facial expressions. I’m thinking about my gestures. I also work with the tone of my voice to help convey the nuances of the messages I’m bringing in.

Relying on all of those different elements to bring a story to life creates a more concrete, imaginal space for the listener to land in. And I imagine it might be similar in the classroom—the more you can draw on every capacity of that student and bring them right where you need them, the more effective you’ll be.

Dr. Wendy Amato 10:46
I’m hearing myself speak to student teachers that I’ve supervised, and I’m hearing myself say to them, You know, instead of raising your voice, whisper and get the students to lean in because they want to hear you.

That’s a vocal technique to offer.

When you talk about facial expression, everyone’s talked about the teacher look. But there’s a lot more we can do with our faces that’s engaging and encouraging—the kind of nodding that we offer.

Those are beautiful things about engagement. And to me, engagement is the opposite of a behavior management issue. You want your students hanging on the lesson, not distracted by something else.

We can use a lot of those similar strategies, right?

Does every story have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

Liza Newell 11:39
Yes.

Dr. Wendy Amato 11:40
Tell me more about that.

Liza Newell 11:43
You know, a story could follow a very non-linear path.

But if you think about the beginning of your story, you’re thinking about what I spoke to earlier—your setting.

If you imagine that you and I are going on a trip together, and I don’t tell you where I’m taking you, you’re probably going to think, Well, I don’t know what to prepare for. I don’t know what to expect.

It’s kind of the same when you’re listening to a story.

A good story will take you on a journey. And when you’re taking someone somewhere, you want to let them know where you’re going so you can be a good tour guide.

So the beginning will establish the setting. The beginning will introduce you to the other companions who are in the story with you—be they animals, trees, or other people.

Then the middle tends to be that moment where expectation and reality collide and conflict arises.

And then the end is the conclusion.

Ends can be open-ended. I think something that I’m learning in the power of stories is—what if we told stories that had fewer punctuation marks and more space for open-ended pondering?

Not that you’re leaving your listener without a conclusion, but you’re leaving them with something to really think about, wonder about, and expand into.

Dr. Wendy Amato 13:18
I’ve heard people speak about your work, and they describe it as inspiring curiosity and imagination. And I believe that one of the outcomes you seek for your listeners is to inspire them toward change.

Is that part of being open at the end?

Liza Newell 13:41
It is. It is.

I really believe in the power of curiosity and imagination to change the world.

If we can’t dream of something beyond what we know, then we’re not going to change what we know or grow through what we know.

So I think allowing some spaciousness within the stories we tell ourselves and each other will give us that room we need to grow—to dream beyond what we know how to dream and to imagine beyond what we know how to imagine.

Dr. Wendy Amato 14:29
Liza, if someone reached out to you and was interested in exploring having you come to lead a workshop or to share your talent with a group, what would that conversation be like?

What kinds of questions do you ask to understand the opportunity?

Liza Newell 14:46
Yeah, I love being in conversations like that because what I do can be tailored to the needs of so many different groups of people.

I have taught six-week courses at retirement communities. I’ve done afternoon seminars at universities.

So the questions I ask really are: Who will be in the room? and What are they hoping to gather from the experience?

Do they want to develop personal stories from their own lives?

Do they want to study one specific fairy tale to distill some of that ancient magic and wisdom?

Or are they looking for storytelling as a tool for the boardroom, a corporate setting, or even to share stories with their family around the dinner table?

Dr. Wendy Amato 15:47
Liza, what kinds of outcomes could you achieve in a short amount of time as compared to a multi-day or longer session?

Liza Newell 15:59
You know, I think you can achieve very similar outcomes in a short amount of time as in a long amount of time.

The longer workshops that I tend to host give more time for people to work either one-on-one or in small groups with one another.

A big part of the work that I help facilitate is around establishing relationships of appreciative listening—getting people to work together to help develop stories or draw ideas out from one another.

So there can be a lot of facilitated partner work in the longer classes and snippets of that in shorter ones. But I think the impact is the same. The message can be extended or distilled.

Dr. Wendy Amato 16:57
Are there practices that accompany storytelling that you would recommend—for example, journaling?

Liza Newell 17:04
Yes, definitely.

I tend not to write my stories down when I’m working on them, but what I will do is a lot of free writing around ideas—to build out characters and bring up memories if I’m working on stories from my own life.

I also think it’s incredibly valuable to hear as many different types of storytellers as you can.

Go online—there’s a great podcast called The Appleseed that has a ton of stories for audiences of all ages. You can go on YouTube and look up the International Storytelling Center and find videos of incredible storytellers from all over the world.

Learning to tune your listening ear is key.

Dr. Wendy Amato 19:12
I’m translating that into a teacher recommendation—especially thinking about the connections that allow people to see themselves in the story.

That’s what every teacher is seeking for each learner in front of them.

Liza Newell 19:12
Right. And that’s so beautiful. I love the way you said that because that could even be something teachers take into the classroom—to ask their students, What did you notice in the story? Where did you find yourself?

And even if the student doesn’t have a specific character they relate to, maybe they got really excited about the field of wildflowers. That’s where they find themselves—they are in that field of wildflowers. Or they are the frog on the side of the well, or the cowboy. It can take so many different forms.

Dr. Wendy Amato 19:53
Can you help me with a quick brainstorm?

Liza Newell 19:53
Sure.

Dr. Wendy Amato 19:53
I’d like to have us craft three additional questions beyond What did you notice? and Where did you see yourself?

I’d like us to think of three more questions that would be helpful for teachers to ask students—to help them become more aware of what they’ve taken in after listening to a story.

We have: What did you notice? and Where did you see yourself?

Maybe… What made you curious? Maybe that’s a third one.

Liza Newell 20:27
I was thinking along similar lines, like What inspired you? or What surprised you?

Dr. Wendy Amato 20:37
I like that you described that moment where reality sort of bumps into things.

Liza Newell 20:41
Right.

Dr. Wendy Amato 20:43
And it may be interesting to ask students if there was a special moment in the story—Did you feel anything at any particular moment in the story?

I’m going to ask people to scroll down to the show notes because we’re going to put these questions together as a teacher tool for people to download. So be sure to check that out.

Liza, thank you for being my guest today.

Liza Newell 21:07
Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Wendy Amato 21:10
To our fellow educators, thank you all for enjoying this conversation with us.

If you’d like to explore topics that Liza and I discussed today, please check out the show notes at TeachingChannel.com/podcast, and be sure to look for that downloadable list of questions to help you in the classroom.

If you’d subscribe on whatever listening app you use, I’d sure appreciate it, and it will help others find us.

I’ll see you again soon for the next episode. Thanks for listening.