“But here, we think in pictures first”: principles and practices for text-free storytelling workshops

Dr Alison Buckler (The Open University, UK) and Dr Faith Mkwananzi (University of the Free State, South Africa) 

Long back when I was at school you were just given a heading and you were asked to write a composition, which was hard. But here, we think in pictures first and we create stories from there.

Linda
storyteller at a text-free storytelling workshop

Storytelling is gaining popularity in research, as a tool for understanding how people make sense of their lives and experiences. Many storytelling research approaches rely on the development of written story-scripts. But what if the storytellers can’t, or would prefer not to, read and write?   

This question was on our minds as we reflected on an invitation to lead a strand of storytelling research within a large-scale non-formal education programme in Zimbabwe. We would be working with a group of adolescent girls and young women from rural communities, exploring their aspirations and learning pathways. We didn’t know about their individual experiences at this point, but we knew they had had had limited and intermittent experience of formal schooling, and that they were not confident readers or writers. 

 The transformative storytelling approach we use supports participants (storytellers) to develop a short story about an event or experience through a range of group and individual activities, over several days. Every workshop is different, with the programme of activities designed specifically in line with the purpose of the research, the cohort of storytellers, and the space and resources available. The outcome might be a story book, an audio recording, a poem or a digital story, depending on the skills and interests of the storytellers. The process of story crafting often includes a combination of art, photography, drama, tactile and dialogical activities. However, writing exercises and script development also form a key part. Could we support the storytelling approach without these? 

We also realised how many other texts are present at workshops: schedules, power-points, worksheets, instructions and signs have the potential to exclude participants who find reading and writing difficult. Could we facilitate a workshop without these? 

After discussions with Transformative Story’s founder, academics and practitioners working in the inclusion space, and our partners from the NGO who would be co-facilitating the workshops, we set ourselves the challenge of creating an entirely text-free storytelling workshop to enable maximum inclusion, engagement and support of the storytellers.  

 The principles and practices we share in this blog can be drawn on individually or as a whole, for storytelling workshops, but also for other kinds learning or training events where there is a specific concern about engagement and inclusion related to participant literacy. Some of the practices were planned in advance, others were added or adapted as we got to know the storytellers better: as with all inclusion work, reflection and flexibility were key.

Principles 

We found it helpful to keep three key principles in mind: 

We recognise that not being able to read or write is unrelated to the insights and contributions someone can make to a research or learning process. Through an inclusion of all or universal design approach, our intention was that all participants would be able to engage independently, confidently and equally in the workshop and create a story whatever their literacy skills. This meant designing the workshop space, content and activities for the person with the lowest literacy skills, so they could contribute as much as a participant with higher literacy skills.  

We believe that research should support participants’ learning as well as researchers’. This principle is central to transformative storytelling. In this workshop in particular it meant reflecting critically on how people learn through multi-modal activities and aligning workshop activities with universal design principles and pedagogic strategies to support co-learning. 

We acknowledge that inclusion and literacy are relational and contextual concepts, and that their terminology, ideals, practices and resources cannot simply be transplanted across settings. This meant having regular reflective conversations across the research/facilitation team, and with the storytellers themselves, to share perspectives on what was working, or not, in terms of inclusion and engagement. 

Practices 

We embedded these principles into our workshop design in a range of ways: 

Information and consent guides were prepared in local languages for use by the community engagement team during recruitment of storytellers and their families. These were co-authored by the academic and NGO team to verbally communicate key elements of the process. The content of the guides met the requirements of the ethics committee at the university at which the research was affiliated, but the length, style and vernacular were adapted so they could be communicated through discussions with the storytellers and their families. We worked with the university ethics committee to develop a consent procedure which was reached conversationally, witnessed by two members of the community engagement team, and did not require a signature.  

We explored the whole venue looking for texts that were necessary to move around and use the facilities – texts that readers might usually take for granted and not notice. We spent time on the first day making sure the storytellers were familiar with the workshop space, so they didn’t have to rely on reading signs to find the toilets or the lunch-room. 

Visual agendas detailed each day’s activities. Repeated motifs were used to represent key activity-types (for example a teacup to indicate a break, a crayon to indicate a creative activity). Post-its were used to cover up motifs as we progressed through the day and as each activity was completed, so the storytellers could easily see where we were in the schedule. 

Coloured ID stickers were given to each storyteller to help them to label, identify and protect their work and any devices they were using. This meant there was no need for them to write their name, and no need to be able read another storyteller’s name to know whose work it was. Each storyteller had their own colour sticker that was consistent through the multiple years of the project. This also helped to keep their contributions and artwork anonymous and un-identifiable to anyone outside the workshop space. 

We set up the space to look very different from a school. We learned that many of the girls and young women had negative memories of feeling unintelligent and excluded when writing stories at school. We reflected on how we could use the workshop space, so it was not reminiscent of a classroom. Chairs were arranged in circles, facilitators sat among the storytellers, lots of movement was encouraged so storytellers could try out different seats. Because there was no text, there was no single focal point for presenting information (like you might usually have a white board or projector screen): flip chart papers with illustrated instructions and schedules were hung around the room so the storytellers could revisit them as needed. 

We aimed to keep our note-taking to a minimum. Our first principle involved challenging the perceived hierarchy between those who can read and write, and those who have not had the opportunity to learn. It seemed inappropriate to positively promote a text-free workshop, only for the research team to be constantly, visibly taking notes. We held nightly meetings for the facilitators (without the storytellers) with activities to prompt memory of and capture key elements of the day, quotes and insights from the activities, and our reflections of these.  

An extended range of multi-modal activities were used. Transformative storytelling workshops draw on different activities: stories develop iteratively through the opportunity to share ideas in multiple ways. Visuals are central to these activities, but in the second half of workshops, storytellers often find it easier to capture iterations in a script, which can be easily edited. In this text-free space, without scriptwriting, we had to find alternative modes of capturing changes to stories. For example, the visual story map used in the early/middle stages of the transformative story process played a more significant role across the whole workshop. We made these maps larger and editable: instead of drawing directly onto them, storytellers cut out pictures and symbols (representing key characters, events, places, emotions, words and phrases) that could be stuck on and moved around using blue tack. We also spent more time on drama activities where specific scenes within stories could be developed and adapted through discussions with the group. 

Larger crayons and markers were provided. Pen-grip can be difficult or tiring for people who are not regular writers. Chunkier pens can alleviate this. 

Multiple, multi-lingual facilitators were selected so the instructions, explanations and discussions took place in three languages. Extra time was built in to enable this, and we had more facilitators than we would usually use so there was always someone on hand to re-explain guidance for activities that was not written down (we had five facilitators for twelve storytellers). 

We learned to trust the storytellers to explore and learn by themselves with less input from the facilitators. In this workshop we were making digital stories, using tablets. Usually in workshops we can direct storytellers to written guides for trouble-shooting issues with apps or the video editing programme, and of course, tablet and app navigation is supported by text. Only a small number of the storytellers had used a tablet or a phone prior to the workshop, so we set aside an extended session for them to play with the tablets with minimal input from the facilitation team. We introduced small challenges (such as make a photo-collage, record and upload an audio track) and within an hour they had taught each other to use advanced features we hadn’t planned on introducing.

Reflections 

Text-free storytelling required more and different kinds of work for the facilitators: we usually communicate with each other a lot, but we had to engage in even more intensive and careful dialogue as we moved between supporting different storytellers: there were fewer written notes or story text to take into the conversation. This made us pay even more attention to each other’s reflections and perspectives; there was more emphasis placed on ensuring key story messages were communicated across the team, and less was taken for granted. 

In practice we did not always succeed in the aim to minimise note taking. It was a difficult balance between upholding the principle and how we were used to fulfilling our responsibilities as researchers and facilitators (wanting to capture everything, in case it is useful at a later point). But paying closer attention to the decision about when to take notes, and when to just listen enabled us to be in the moment, to pay more (and more visible) attention when people were talking. We think this supported a more respectful and mutual connection with the storytellers. 

In hindsight, we should have built in more time – almost every activity took longer than we were used to because we spent more time explaining tasks. In particular, the final (recorded) telling of the story took significantly longer than anticipated. Even when storytellers have scripts to read from, they might want to do three or four takes of the recording. When there were no scripts, some storytellers did 20+ takes until they were happy with it. Breaking the story down into scenes and recording each scene separately helped – but added significantly to editing and production time. In future, if adapting a workshop to be text-free we would pay closer attention to developing a programme around a smaller number of activities. 

Our approach was not perfect; our own worlds are so text-heavy it was hard to completely switch off in the space of a week. However, reflecting on our reliance on text and the hierarchies that are associated with the ability to use it helped us to understand how the storytellers’ intermittent and often negative experiences of schooling had entrenched an association between text and learning. Our explicit commitment to challenge the idea that to participate meaningfully in a learning activity required an ability to read or produce text appeared to be valued by them. We finish with their words:

I learnt that I can design and tell my story without anyone helping me. I don’t need to write it down”.

Rutenda

When education is only with words people look down on you for not understanding, and if you try to communicate your experiences with words and you are not skilled, they misunderstand you. The skills I got from the workshops are around how pictures help me to illustrate things – even to myself. Once I have the picture, I can go deep into my thoughts and use words that clearly describe what I want to say”.

Danai

This blog has been adapted from a Knowledge Product written by the authors for the funders. You can read more about the workshops, the storytelling process and its origins, and the data generated through the storytelling process here. 

With thanks to Dr Joanna Wheeler (Transformative Story) whose storytelling approach underpinned the project and who advised on the research, Professor Jonty Rix (The Open University, UK) who supported with the adaptations to make the workshop more inclusive and text-free, and Dr Katherine Collins (University of Oxford, UK) whose review and feedback supported the development of the Knowledge Product into a blog. 

This research was carried out as part of the SAGE (Supporting Adolescent Girls' Education) Programme. SAGE was funded by UK aid through the Girls’ Education Challenge. It was led by Plan International and involved a consortium of six partners and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Zimbabwe (MoPSE). SAGE enabled over 13,000 out-of-school adolescent girls and young women to return to learning. The views in this blog represent those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).