What makes a story? Is it the characters, events, places, or emotions? You might've already said all of them. Yes, all of these make a story. But how they fit into a structure is the key ingredient in turning an ensemble of elements into a cohesive story.
What makes the structure then? It's the order in which all the above-mentioned elements are presented to the listener. To make it simple, a story requires a beginning, a middle and an end.
A Beginning that eases the listener to your world of characters, events, places and emotions letting them know where they are, and what to expect. A Middle, that shows them a conflict (between characters themselves, characters vs. events, characters vs. places, characters vs. emotions or more) and finally, a Conclusion which gives the listener a satisfactory resolution.
An appropriate reference at this point would be the 3-act Structure which is a popular narrative technique.
Now, let's connect this to our topic of the day - Teaching!
What do you think is the biggest qualification that is required to be a teacher? Is it Subject Matter Knowledge, Communication Skills, Attitude, or Personality? (I know, did it once again!)
If you ask for my personal opinion, the most important quality a teacher must possess is the skill of storytelling.
Let's take a look at how a teacher can use the three-act structure in teaching
Beginning: Ease a student to the topic of the day, list out the things that they are going to learn today, and tell them some interesting trivia about those topics- this will hook them right in.
Middle: This is where you will break down the topics introduced to them. Go deeper, telling them connections and making them get a solid understanding of the content.
Conclusion: Never end a session abruptly. Ease out. Tell them how this is practically relevant, what follows this and show them some use cases or even better- Make them do it!
Time for you to do some field tests! Hope this helps.
