Teaching Through Story (draft guide)
This page should explain how storytelling can function as a way of teaching and learning. It should introduce the idea that stories may carry knowledge, values, relationships, and responsibilities rather than serving only as entertainment or classroom content.
Writing guidance for authors: Focus on what storytelling can teach and how learning may happen through stories. This page should introduce storytelling as a meaningful educational practice while remaining respectful of cultural context and community specificity.
What this page should include
- A brief explanation of storytelling as more than entertainment.
- Examples of what stories can carry, such as values, relationships, and memory.
- A note that meanings may depend on context, listeners, time, and place.
- A reminder that stories come from specific Nations and communities.
Possible focus areas
What stories can carry
- Teachings about relationships among people, land, and more-than-human life.
- Community memory, history, and identity.
- Language, humour, and cultural continuity.
- Ethical teachings about how to live well with others.
What to avoid
- Treating stories like content that can be taken without context.
- Assuming one Nation’s stories represent all Indigenous communities.
- Using sacred or community-specific stories without permission.
- Reducing stories to one fixed “moral” or classroom takeaway.
Suggested source type
Use 1–2 scholarly sources discussing Indigenous storytelling, oral tradition, or relational learning. Full citations should appear on the References page.
Connect to pedagogy
Show how storytelling supports educational ideas such as listening, reflection, and relationship.
Go to Pedagogy →Start with respect
Consider protocols and questions that support responsible planning and representation.
Go to Respectful Practice →Move into applications
Connect ideas about storytelling to possible classroom and early childhood practices.
Go to Applications →