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.
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.
Founder
Yu-ching Huang, received her bachelor’s degree in Home Economics from Fu-Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan in 1980, followed by a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Central State University, Edmond, Oklahoma, USA in 1986. In 1998, Huang began to read English picture storybooks to young children in schools and bookstores in Taipei city. That same year, she translated Vivian Gussin Paley's book, Boys and Girls, into Chinese. At the end of 2002, Huang attended Paley’s conference in Taipei, where she was introduced to Paley’s method of Storytelling and Story Acting, ST/SA. In 2003, Huang established an afterschool classroom, "StoryCorner", where she read English picture storybooks to children, and conduct bilingual ST/SA. After fifteen years of implementation of ST/SA, Huang closed her classroom and dedicate herself to advocating ST/SA. To launch this new phase, she wrote her first book, Stories in StoryCorner: Three Lessons from Teacher Paley's Letters, in 2021. And in 2024, she wrote You Say, I Write, You All Play: My ST/SA Notebook to add a practical reference guide for educators. Huang had also translated Paley’s other books into Chinese, The Kindness of Children , The Boy on the Beach: Building Community Through Play, White Teacher, and Kwanzaa and Me: A Teacher’s Story.
Consultant - Dr. Gillian McNamee
Dr. Gillian McNamee been invited to serve as a consultant for StoryCorner since 2025.
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.