StoryCorner and STSA

Introduction

StoryCorner is a project dedicated to advocating Storytelling and Story Acting, STSA, a classroom activity developed by the late American kindergarten teacher, Vivian Gussin Paley, 1929-2019.

At the end of 2002, Paley was invited to Taiwan to give lectures and workshops on STSA. StoryCorner founder, Yu-ching Huang, attended the conference and was inspired profoundly by Paley and her method. Following Paley’s return to the States, Huang began to correspond with Paley about her practice of STSA in her classroom.

STSA is an effective method that not only fulfills children’s need for fantasy play, it also enhances children’s self-confidence and encourages children to participate the classroom life. And the result of helping children in their language development and logical thinking is proved by many teachers to be fruitful.

Vivian Gussin Paley in Taipei, 2002.

Paley giving workshops in Taiwan, 2002.

STSA

Based on the method Huang learned from Paley’s demonstration in Taiwan, the descriptions in Paley’s books, and the discussions with Paley in their correspondence, Huang used the following steps:

1.  Invite children to tell their own stories;

2.  scribe verbatim each child’s story;

3.  read the story back to the child;

4.  invite the class to act out the story.

The following rules create a fair, inclusive, fun, and safe community, and make STSA an easy-to-do activity that needs only a pen, and paper:

1.     Everyone involved;

2.     everyone takes turns choosing their roles;

3.     props and rehearsals are not needed;

4.     body contact is discouraged during the acting time.

Huang doing STSA in Taiwan.

Mission

StoryCorner provides workshops, reading clubs, and discussion groups for teachers who wish to apply STSA in their classrooms.

Huang introducing STSA in Taiwan.

Consultant - Dr. Gillian McNamee

Dr. Gillian McNamee received her Masters in the Science of Teaching from the University of Chicago with 2 years of mentoring in the kindergarten classroom of Vivian Gussin Paley from 1974-1976. She then completed her Ph.D. in Education, Reading and Language from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She has taught fifth grade science, served as a preschool language arts teacher, and been a kindergarten teacher. Dr. McNamee has deep training and experience working in classrooms with young children, and is an accomplished early childhood teacher educator. She has supported students becoming early childhood teachers in the US, and has carried out professional development initiatives with teachers in Europe, Taiwan, several regions of China, Turkey, and Kyrgyzstan. She is the author of The High Performing Preschool (2015) and Listening to Learning written with Dr. Jie-Qi Chen (2024). She speaks nationally and internationally on how teachers can listen to young children in order to become the teacher young children need to anticipate their future.