Classical educators commonly hold up “the story” as its principal teaching tool. If you want to lead a student to learn Wisdom and Virtue, then read a great story together. The lessons in them are manifold, and their ability to catch even the most dispassionate student is well known. Similarly, if you want a student to demonstrate Wisdom and Virtue, then have him write a story.

Monsters or dragons? Hunstmen or knights? Damsels or shieldmaidens? The shape of a student’s story reveals far more than his likes or dislikes within a particular genre. It reveals the very drama of his imagination, which is the playground of the soul.

Yet, teachers often find it easier to help a student receive a story than to write one. Even the most gifted need a lot of help thinking about the sound and structure of a story, let alone developing an interesting plot. Classical educators have a few strategies that greatly aid in this area.

The first and, perhaps, most important strategy comes from the tradition of imitatio, which means “imitation” in Latin. Classical educators hold that imitation is the chief mode of learning. If you want to become good at something, then find a model of that something to replicate. It follows, then, that a student who wants to write a good story should find a good story to imitate. Better still, find a good storyteller, and imitate his or her habits.

Two of the best and most commonly read among my students are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, so I recently dove into their writings to see what they had to say about telling stories. With any luck, they would have some kind of “recipe” or “formula” all laid out for aspiring storytellers. Although that did not turn out to be the case, they had many tidbits of advice and lots of habits in common in their approach to storytelling, namely: reading, playing, and drawing.

In the next three posts, I will explain the importance of these habits for aspiring storytellers, be they in the classroom or at home, and show how Lewis and Tolkien both made use of them. Here are the names of the posts and brief summaries.

Fill-up on the Cauldron (aka Read): In this post, I rely on Tolkien’s image of the “cauldron of story” to show the importance of reading and listening to great stories in the formation of a storyteller.

Boxen the Story (aka Play): In this post, I focus on Lewis’s imaginary play world of Boxen as a metaphor for the role of play in forming the imagination of a storyteller.

Start with a Picture (aka Draw): In this post, I bring together examples of how Lewis and Tolkien both used pictures to inform their writing.

Once this series is through, the next one will apply these habits to the classroom, and I will share some of the exercises that have been the most fruitful and enjoyable for my students.

I do want to offer two disclaimers. First, I am an amateur on Lewis and much more so on Tolkien. Though an immense fan of both, I have hardly tapped the well of their writings. Second, while Lewis and Tolkien possessed the habits I am highlighting, I am in no way saying they followed them as a rule or regimen. It is the teacher in me that likes to synthesize and organize and has therefore extrapolated something concrete for children and their families. But the writer in me also knows that habits, like good stories, form little by little and rarely in the order we intend. Creation, which is at the heart of telling stories, is an open door that one can walk through however one pleases.

Image Credit: The Story Book by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1877)