Stories in the Nursing Classroom: Writing and Learning through Stories

Abstract

I remember vividly the anxiety that I felt when I first decided to use stories as a major part of my teaching. I worried that my students would dismiss this teaching strategy as frivolous. I had taught for many years and was comfortable with my “proven” strategies. Students did well in my classes and seemed to enjoy them. With the increasing complexity of health care, however, I felt the need to “cover” more and more content. Yet it seemed that I had less and less time to help students understand and apply this content. With the focus on covering content, I seemed to be covering over, or obscuring the important meanings that I wanted the students to grasp. How could I uncover these meanings for students? Using stories in my teaching has provided this answer. In this manuscript I explore some of these understandings through discussing: (a) background information from the literature to make a case for teaching with stories; (b) therapeutic uses of storytelling; (c) strategies for using storytelling in teaching; and (d) telling stories beyond the classroom.