Building Classroom
Community Through
Storytelling
I
For one elementary fell into storytelling on a rainy
afternoon during my inau-
teacher, weaving a gural year teaching 1st grade.
It was 2015, two seasons into
tale with his students my teaching career, and I was
created unexpected attempting to conduct a reflective
closing circle with a group of
connections. six-year-olds who hadn’t been
outside all day. They were pre-
Bret Turner dictably wiggly and impulsive,
and all I wanted to do was say
a thoughtful goodbye, tell them
their dismissal plan, usher them
off, and take a breath by myself in
an empty classroom.
In the eye of the commotion, as
I began to read aloud the printout
of who was going where after
school (bus, pickup, after-school
program), an inquisitive student
asked me, “Mr. Turner, where
does the list come from?”
I almost put up a finger in that
ask-me-later-please motion that
teachers like me are so fond of,
but something stopped me. I held
72 Educational Leadership / September 2018
Turner.indd 72
up the piece of paper and said,
“This list?”
She nodded.
I was about to explain to her
that Ms. K, the administrator who
delivered the list every afternoon
at 2:00 p.m., generated it from
her computer in the school’s
main office. But that reply seemed
so mundane, especially given the
genuine curiosity on the girl’s
face, and I wanted to end the day
on a high note.
“Well,” I began, with abso-
lutely no idea where I was going,
“the list actually comes from
a different world.”
More heads turned toward me.
“A different world?” the girl
parroted, an eyebrow raised.
“Yes. Well, you see, they
aren’t made here at school. The
lists are delivered every day, at
exactly 1:54 p.m., without fail.
They come coiled up tightly, like
scrolls. They smell like smoke
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g

PHOTO BY JAHI JOHNSON

Bret Turner and his 1st grade class.

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Turner.indd 73 7/30/18 5:42 PM

 and fire and . . . saltwater when they
arrive.”
I was extemporizing, but the room
was nearly quiet now. When I pro-
ceeded to tell them that it was an
enigmatic, verbose, four-eyed squirrel
who hand-delivered the list through a
secret (and possibly enchanted) door
under Ms. K’s desk, I had every eye
in the room glued to me, their faces
painted with that brand of intense
curiosity only seen in children: I need
to know exactly what this new and
interesting thing is, and I need to know
it right now.
When I told them it was a four-eyed squirrel
who hand-delivered the list through a secret
door, I had every eye in the room glued to me.
An almost yearlong story emerged
from those improvised details, with
the help of an imaginative, cre-
ative, and exceptionally engaged
class of children. Every day, if we
had time before dismissal, and
if the kids cleaned up efficiently
after their free time, I’d tell a new
installment of “The Land of the List,”
as I a­ ffectionately began to refer to
the story.
In the tale, a community of four-
eyed squirrels, living in a land where
every hour that passed equaled a
mere second here on Earth, worked
together in harmony to generate end-
of-day dismissal plans for every child
in every school in the human world.
But there came a day when their land
was in danger, threatened by unseen
forces, and they begrudgingly asked
a human—me, and by extension, the
kids themselves—to help them for
74 Educational Leadership / September 2018
Turner.indd 74
the first time in their millennia-long
history. As it developed, the story
comprised a land of strange trees,
mechanical wooden devices, secret
portals and whimsical songs, unex-
plained events, plot twists, 1st grade
humor, mystery, and lots of perilous
adventure. I’d like to believe I gave
them a kid-friendly mashup of Twin
Peaks and Lost, although I’m sure the
truth is far more prosaic.
As it evolved through the year,
this story did more than entertain.
It gave us a collective bond and
motivation. My students all wanted
to believe. Even now, three years
later, some of them still drop by to
ask me if “The Land of the List” was
real—even though they helped me build
the narrative. In truth, they probably
know it wasn’t; most of them surely
suspected as much during the telling
of it. But the desire to believe in its
reality overrode any doubts, and
even though they were all over the
map in terms of maturity—a normal,
expected constant in the world of
teaching—they were united in their
belief that I had visited this world
and that it existed in some sense.
A New Chapter on
Classroom Management
I’ll never forget the professor who
told me in my teacher-certification
program that “discipline is a
back-up plan.” I’ve taken that to
heart. Classroom management and
l­eadership—the systems and routines
that become ritual, the community
we build through shared agreements
and explicit expectations and conse-
quences, the agency given to kids—
are discipline; or rather, they serve
as more loving and supportive sub-
stitutes. Building a fun, safe, positive
environment is the backbone of an
elementary school classroom, but it’s
both an art and a science, a never-
ending feedback loop of responding,
tinkering, resetting, and rethinking,
and sometimes even starting over
from scratch.
“The Land of the List” provided
an ideal lens through which my class
and I could practice, troubleshoot,
and problem solve together. The
story became a fertile ground for
teaching and role-playing social sce-
narios. It helped build a healthy and
thriving emotional environment and
class culture.
For example, when our elementary
school adopted a new emotional
literacy curriculum called Toolbox,
my class applied the framework of
this program to our invented world.
Characters in the story would need
to use various tools to get them
out of sticky situations. Larry, for
example—a class favorite who was
an ordinary human-world two-eyed
squirrel who faked his way into the
Land of the List by wearing two extra
googly eyes—was always working to
regain his friends’ trust after being
discovered. He had to make frequent
use of his Empathy Tool to forgive
his friends for their wariness. The
character of Mr. Turner, a version
of myself, used his Patience Tool
whenever anything new and con-
fusing cropped up, which was nearly
every installment. Squirrels who were
angry about something needed to
7/30/18 5:42 PM
 exercise patience and understanding,
and yes, sometimes they needed time
and space to simply be angry and
frustrated.
It also soon became clear that the
story provided a perfect vehicle for
integrating our classroom charter. As
a community, we had spent the early
weeks of the school year drafting
and later publishing maxims that we
all signed and agreed to adhere to,
including “We will clean up messes”
(literal and figurative alike) and “We
will make wise choices.” In the story,
characters were guided by these pre-
cepts, weighing the pros and cons of
a tough emotional decision. Squirrels
made mistakes, said unkind things,
PHOTO BY BRET TURNER

and worked hard to rectify them; in

short, they acted human. Each time
a new dilemma surfaced, the 1st
graders gamely offered advice, predic-
Through storytelling, Bret Turner saw his students develop a classroom community—
tions, postmortems, and dissections. and a natural curiosity.
And, in the end, their acceptance.

Lore and Behold
In addition to helping with classroom
management and community
building, the storytelling project
helped illustrate and develop aca-
demic skills. The obvious curricular
connection is, of course, literature
and—more specifically—literacy.
Recapping, summarizing, predicting.
Vocabulary, character motivations,
development. The story was a perfect
vehicle for priming basic and even
some advanced literacy strategies and
skills. Natural academic extensions
followed, from writing assignments
to art projects, math and science con-
nections, even a classroom-generated
phonics book called Squirrelina’s
Primer: Sight Words in ‘The Land of
The List.’ (“Squirrelina”—to reveal
the limitations of my then-nascent
storytelling abilities—was the
name of the main character.)
The storytelling framework
also allowed an easy entry point
into issues of social justice, which
created a new space for current
events. Discussing sensitive topics
is always tricky in the elementary
classroom, and the makeup of our
school—racially diverse by private
school standards but still very
white, largely wealthy, and politi-
cally homogeneous—adds an extra
layer of complexity. Co-developing
characters that were part of a shared
narrative paved the way for issues
of inequality, oppression, racism,
and white privilege to take center
stage. As the Black Lives Matter
movement was gaining momentum
in the country and as we discussed
related developments more and
more in class, complex issues arose
around such questions as “Whose
voices are being heard, and whose
have been historically squashed?”
Themes of agency, voice, fairness and
unfairness, and abuse of power were
weaved into the tale and connected to
the real world. What would it be like
for these squirrels to invite a human
into their secret world? Why are they
working so hard to make lists for
kids? Don’t they have families of their
own? Can we hear their side? Kids
have a way of asking plainly stated,
probing questions with no easy
answers.
A Never-Ending Story
I’ve continued to tell similar tales
with other classes, and I continue to
be astounded at the ways in which
they affect classroom dynamics.
The stories form a collective ethos

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 that engenders our shared systems,
procedures, and values. My stu-
The stories form a collective ethos that engenders
dents last year were fascinated by
our classroom gecko, and we always
our shared systems, procedures, and values.
seemed to be running low on pencils
and glue sticks, and so the story we
created revolved around a group school day. Kids would bust out of whenever I meet them in the tale,
of mysterious lizards who were the door like battering rams, teetering genderless to me, and I find myself
sneaking in at night and stealing on the edge of downright unsafe using pronouns without actually
our supplies. It was called, imagi- behavior. On hard days, despite knowing what they would prefer. I
natively, “Pencils and Glue Sticks.” my best intentions, I’d occasionally bring the students’ attention to that:
This year, a large communal rug with use the promise of an episode as “I notice I’m calling the silent crow
a drawing of a tree inspired a story leverage in ways that would make character he, even though the crow
about a community of birds whose my Responsive Classroom instructor has never identified as either male
well-being is in peril and who turn wince, holding the story hostage or female. I wonder why that is?”
to an unsuspecting 1st to encourage good No matter the story or emphasis,
grade class to help. It’s behavior. My memory though, the results are the same: deep
Squirrelina’s Primer
called “The Mystery of Sight Words in the would also occa- engagement, creative input, more
the ­Midnight Birds.” Land of the List sionally fail me, and deeply ingrained classroom man-
The deep, transfor- kids would wrestle with agement and routines, and a more
mative power of a good the confusion of the tightly knit community.
story is nothing new. capriciously established As amazing and magical as books
But what has bowled me world-building we were are, there’s something so pure and
over is the way that a engaging in, sometimes to direct about oral storytelling. There’s
tale crafted by a small the point of frustration. absolutely nothing between you and
community of kids can There was the occasional your audience. No pictures, printed
spread into the nooks day when the episode words, props, or anything besides
and crannies of 1st fell totally flat, and there the sounds you weave together to
grade life. A communal story were times when the story make a story. Everyone has the
helps us all feel tethered and con- simply wasn’t, for whatever reason, same point of entry, the same expe-
nected as we navigate the beautiful weaving its magic. rience, and it becomes a shared,
but treacherous waters of getting And yet, even during the bumpy collaborative endeavor. It allows
along and learning the rules and times, we pushed through. The for eye contact, knowing glances,
culture of school life. The stories kids were always game to tackle a nuanced facial expressions from me
have served as anchoring points for problem, to make tweaks, to rework and the audience alike, and perhaps
us all; as we become more and more glitchy patches as needed; and most importantly in this context,
invested in the characters and the besides, I had other help: my intern total freedom: We are creating
plot, the classroom seems to hum teachers Mary, Katie, and Jahi; our this together.
just a little better. Students begin to art teacher Marissa; the famous Ms. K And creating something big, messy,
have a little more buy-in to the whole who received the daily list scrolls; and entirely authentic with a group of
idea of school, and our classroom parents. They were all in on it, all on kids, well—that’s the best part of
rules make a little more sense. board with engaging in the absurdist teaching. EL
I don’t mean to paint this idea as a narrative we were building.
panacea. It hasn’t been a perfect road,
and I’ve learned from my mistakes Weaving Tales Together
Bret Turner (bretjturner@gmail.com) is
along the way. I used to end episodes Things shift with each year’s tale. A a 1st grade teacher at an independent
with cliffhangers that were far too new focus for this year’s story is on school in Oakland, California. Follow
stimulating for the conclusion of a gender, for instance. The birds are, him on Twitter @bretjturner.

76 Educational Leadership / September 2018

Turner.indd 76 7/30/18 5:42 PM

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