As a Certified Thinking Maps® trainer, Eileen DeLorenzo’s Classroom Storytelling Programs support teachers in meeting National Common Core Standards in ELA in school districts where teachers are trained in Thinking Maps®.

Click here for examples of Classroom Storytelling and Thinking Maps™

Eileen integrates Thinking Maps® within six K-8 classroom storytelling sessions. Each Classroom Storytelling in English Language Arts session engages the attention and emotion of students through the creation of images within the shared dynamic between teller and listener. Thinking Maps® are then created individually, in small groups, and/or large groups. Students knowledgeable in their ability to organize their thoughts can fill a blank paper with visual stock containing rich vocabulary, details, organized ideas and literary elements.

Using the shared common story, students practice recognizing and mapping good story elements, rich vocabulary, story sequence, contrast and comparison of characters, cause and effect, and analogies to name a few ways the eight maps are applied. The forty-five to ninety minute sessions focus on literary elements in K-8 curriculum, deepening student knowledge of their ability to create images from the story and organize their thinking using the visual patterns of Thinking Maps®. Suggested follow-up student created Thinking Maps® and/or writing prompts are emailed to teachers prior to each classroom storytelling session.

If You Can See It, You Can Write It!

K-8 – Six Classroom Storytelling Sessions
Visualizing, Thinking Maps™and Writing

• Engage students in the creation of images through vivid storytelling
• Integrate Storytelling and Thinking Maps™ practicing good story mapping and story writing
• Created and completed maps prime, launch and sustain students confidently in the writing process.

 

Let’s Tell Stories

Early Literacy PreK-2 – Practicing Oracy for Literacy Development

• Connecting students to story through interactions
• Student participation with repetitions, rhyme, and song
• Crafted stories reinforcing and building oral language vocabulary
• Created imagery
• Build story ‘sense’
• Nourish sense of belonging in social language experience