In this episode Antonio Sacre and Michelle Jones discuss the history of storytelling, the art of storytelling, ways to bring stories to your classroom, and how to encourage students to tell their stories. Antonio encourages teachers of all age groups and content areas to share their stories with their students because stories bring people together, expand perspectives, develop oral language, support literacy development, and teach lessons about our world. Antonio and Michelle discuss how the craft of teaching writers involves finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, recognizing process preferences, and modeling our own writing struggles and triumphs. As many schools are beginning the year with remote and hybrid learning, they encourage teachers to “keep it simple during a complex time.”
Antonio Sacre might be the greatest storyteller you’ve never heard of. Antonio’s tales of growing up bilingually in a Cuban and Irish-American household have inspired children worldwide to gather their own family stories and become storytellers themselves. Many of his stories have been published in award winning books and audio recordings. You might be familiar with My Name is Cool, The Barking Mouse, and A Mango in the Hand, if not you can access free recordings of these books and other stories by Antonio at https://antoniosacre.bandcamp.com/. In addition to writing and telling stories Antonio provides professional development in the area of teaching writing to educators from pre-k – graduate school. Learn more about Antonio at https://www.antoniosacre.com/.
This episode is sponsored by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization committed to covering one of America’s most important stories: the effort to improve schools for all children. Stay up to date on all of the current events in education at www.chalkbeat.org.