2. Purpose: The purpose of this strategy is to ensure that students thoroughly comprehend a variety of different aspects of a story by closely analyzing the main character(s), setting(s), problem(s), event(s), and solution(s).
3. Purpose: The purpose of this strategy is to ensure that students thoroughly comprehend a variety of different aspects of a story by closely analyzing the main character(s), setting(s), problem(s), event(s), and solution(s). Grades: Kindergarten to Grade 12
4. Purpose: The purpose of this strategy is to ensure that students thoroughly comprehend a variety of different aspects of a story by closely analyzing the main character(s), setting(s), problem(s), event(s), and solution(s). Grades: Kindergarten to Grade 12 Subjects: English/Language Arts, Social Studies
7. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Name of the main character
8. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Simba Name of the main character
9. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Two words describing the main character Simba
10. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Two words describing the main character Simba Lost, Naive
11. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Three words describing the setting Simba Lost, Naive
12. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Simba Three words describing the setting Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred
13. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Four words stating the story problem Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred
14. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Simba Four words stating the story problem Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered
15. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Five words describing one event in the story Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered
16. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Five words describing one event in the story Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away
17. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Six words describing a second event Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away
18. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Six words describing a second event Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock
19. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Seven words describing a third event Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock
20. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Simba Seven words describing a third event Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock Nala finds Simba and asks for help
21. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Eight words describing the solution to the problem Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock Nala finds Simba and asks for help
22. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Eight words describing the solution to the problem Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock Nala finds Simba and asks for help Simba defeats his murderous uncle and restores peace
23. Procedure: Story Pyramid _________ 2. _____________ 3. _________________ 4. _____________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _____________________________ 7. _________________________________ 8. _____________________________________ Simba Lost, Naive Africa, Dangerous, Sacred Simba’s father is murdered Feeling guilty, Simba runs away Scar and hyenas takeover Pride Rock Nala finds Simba and asks for help Simba defeats his murderous uncle and restores peace
25. Benefits: This method of critical reading is beneficial to all students, particularly those with Learning Disabilities that create difficulties in attention, comprehension, analysis, and retention.
26. Benefits: This method of critical reading is beneficial to all students, particularly those with Learning Disabilities that create difficulties in attention, comprehension, analysis, and retention. Students with such disabilities can benefit from the method’s support and guidance, while ensuring they grasp both specific details and the “big picture.”
27. Benefits: This method of critical reading is beneficial to all students, particularly those with Learning Disabilities that create difficulties in attention, comprehension, analysis, and retention. Students with such disabilities can benefit from the method’s support and guidance, while ensuring they grasp both specific details and the “big picture.” Story pyramids force students to read an assigned story, comprehend the story enough to formulate key words for each line, and also to use critical thinking to be succinct and concise while still getting their point across.
28. Benefits: This method of critical reading is beneficial to all students, particularly those with Learning Disabilities that create difficulties in attention, comprehension, analysis, and retention. Students with such disabilities can benefit from the method’s support and guidance, while ensuring they grasp both specific details and the “big picture.” Story pyramids force students to read an assigned story, comprehend the story enough to formulate key words for each line, and also to use critical thinking to be succinct and concise while still getting their point across. The flexibility of this method allows it to be used at an individual level, for students who prefer to work on their own, at a group level, for those who prefer to work with classmates, or with the classroom as a whole.
29. Benefits: This method of critical reading is beneficial to all students, particularly those with Learning Disabilities that create difficulties in attention, comprehension, analysis, and retention. Students with such disabilities can benefit from the method’s support and guidance, while ensuring they grasp both specific details and the “big picture.” Story pyramids force students to read an assigned story, comprehend the story enough to formulate key words for each line, and also to use critical thinking to be succinct and concise while still getting their point across. The flexibility of this method allows it to be used at an individual level, for students who prefer to work on their own, at a group level, for those who prefer to work with classmates, or with the classroom as a whole. Furthermore, the information required for each line can vary based on assignment or subject, and can be expanded for use with a story as a whole or condensed to be conflict, relationship, or character specific.
30. Citation: Calder, D. (1994). Story pyramid. Informally published manuscript, The Educator’s Reference Desk, The University of Syracuse, Syracuse, New York. Retrieved from http://www.eduref.org/cgi- bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/ Whole_ Language/WLG0007.html
Editor's Notes
For this presentation, I chose to research a learning strategy. One of the strategies that really interested me was the Story Pyramid. partially because it works with my major, which is Secondary Ed in English and also because this strategy can be used with a number of different grades and subjects.
How often do we read a paragraph in a textbook, a chapter in a story or even a poem and think, wait, what did I just read. Well the Story Pyramid can be used to make sure that students are thoroughly grasping the main aspects of a paragraph, story, or poem, by making them use critical thinking skills to analyze things like characters, settings, problems, events and solutions.
The recommended grades for the Story Pyramid are Kindergarten to Grade 12, but personally, I feel that with certain modifications and adjustments, we could make use of this strategy ourselves.
The source where I found this strategy suggests that Story Pyramids be used in English and Language Arts classrooms, however, I think that many may find it useful for Social Studies classrooms as well, since history can often come across like a story with multiple characters and storylines. Again, as you will see as we go one, Story Pyramids can be stretched and expanded to work with a number of different grade levels and subjects.
Story Pyramids can be copied for each student to be used for individual work, given to groups of students, or posted in front of the class where everyone can work on it together
Regardless of the mode of delivery, each Story Pyramid follows this general pattern. There are eight lines, with each line holding the same number of words as it’s line number. So line 1 holds one word, line 2 holds two words, all the way down until line 8, which holds eight words. What each line holds can vary based on the reading assignment, but for our purposes today we are going to use the original pattern and we are going to base it on the story of the Lion King.
The first line asks for the name of our main character
Which in our case, is Simba.This first line is fairly straightforward.
The second line asks for two words describing the main character.So now we are asked to analyze Simba a little bit more, and come up with two, and only two words, that we think best describe his character.
I chose the words Lost and Naïve.
The next line asks for three words describing the setting
I chose Africa, Dangerous, and Sacred. Here again, the student is forced analyze the setting and choose only three words.
The fourth line asks for four words stating the story problem, and this is much more difficult than it sounds, because student’s must be able to identify the problem, as well as choose one very short sentence to summarize it.
My sentence may not be the best one, but it really is harder than it seems, I did a lot of word counting on my fingers!
Now the next three lines ask us to describe three events in the story, preferably listed in chronological order. Here the student is asked to identify three events and consolidate characters, thoughts and ideas into short concise sentences.
The final line asks for eight words describing the solution to the problem.For this line the student must be able to identify that this event is in fact the solution to the story’s problem and create an 8 word sentence to describe it.
For which I chose, Simba returns home to defeat his murderous uncle.
Here is our complete Story PyramidThe beauty of this strategy is that no two students or two groups of students will have the same responsesand if you choose to have students share their pyramidsyou will find that students will be able to grasp a much deeper understanding of the work based on the different reactions and responses of their peers.
There are several benefits to using the Story Pyramid learning strategy
First off, this method works really well with students who have learning disabilities that cause problems with attentions, comprehension, analysis, and retention
Furthermore, these students, and all students, will benefit from the Pyramid’s ability to have a student really consider the details of the story, while still giving them a great visual representation of the big picture.
Also, Story Pyramids reinforce the need for students to have read their assignment, and provides them with the opportunity to analyze key aspects of the story. Also the fact that they are made to formulate short concise sentences, pulls them away from broad generalizations and allows them summarize in the their own words.
The flexibility of the method is great in that students can work individually, or in groups where you can pair those with disabilities with those who excel in reading and comprehension.
Finally, as I said before I really believe Story Pyramids are extremely adaptable for different reading levels, grade levels, and subjects, and while you may not want to use one all the time, it’s a great strategy to promote thorough reading analysis, as well as dialogue and discussion in the classroom.
I found this learning strategy from The Educator’s Reference Desk from the University of Syracuse’s website.
