The emerging use of storytelling as an alternative teaching methodology

Michael Blissenden (University of Western Sydney, Australia) presented the findings of a three year teaching project which developed an alternative teaching methodology to the appellate case law method.

Michael’s slides are embedded below, and you can also download his full paper (Word file, 14 pages, 66 KB) at the bottom of the page.

Michael’s paper looked at a project aiming to go beyond traditional approaches to revenue law teaching and to get students beyond the “what I need to do to pass the exam” mentality. His paper and the other paper in the session, Exhuming human remains from case law: a report on the first dig, sparked a lively discussion. Storytelling was felt to have both intellectual and instrumental benefits, with empathy and understanding of the lay client a highly valuable perspective for the young lawyer. Gary Watt (Warwick) made the telling point that in recovering the human content of the law students were recovering their own humanity (from the numbing, dehumanising influences of ‘black letter’ legal education?).

The methodology described by Michael’s paper uses appellate court decisions as a base for students to investigate the background of the litigating parties. Students focus entirely on the legal principle from the decision and are also encouraged to explore the storylines presented by the parties, usually outlined by the court as the facts. The stories told by the parties represent their view of the factual conflict. Such factual information can now be located on the Web and presented to the classroom for discussion and analysis.

This approach challenges the mainstream teaching process for law, centred on using the appellate court decision as the basis for classroom debate and dialogue as dictated by the teacher. Instead, this method appreciates the importance of the appellate court decision but shifts the focus to student centred learning, encouraging engaged student learning. Students are guided by the teacher to investigate the background historical, social and political factors surrounding the dispute. The Web provides a vast resource base for students to research for legal and non legal material surrounding the position of the parties. In so doing they develop an appreciation for the stories (facts) told by each party and then read the appellate court decision with such informed information in mind. Students then use a wide array of visual and oral methods to present and discuss their findings, with constructive and educational classroom dialogue undertaken by all members of the class. In this model the teacher facilitates the discussion and guides students to an appreciation of how the legal principle arising from the judicial decision was reached by the appellate court. The legal principle can then be applied to problem based questions to evaluate its application.

This method provides a clear example of engaged learning, which sits well with the literature on improving student learning (Le Brun & Johnstone, 1994). This active learning approach stimulates student involvement, critical thought and an appreciation of the historical social and political processes at the time of the litigation. It also challenges the case law method of teaching, in line with current literature debating the appropriate method of teaching law..

Nick Johnson (now retired) reports:

Getting students to develop stories around cases can give a new perspective to learning about case law and assist the move to student centred learning. It also serves to reinforce the understanding of the ratio of the case.
 
The strategy is to select appellate decisions and to allow the student to see the case from a story about the facts of the case. The example given was of the appellate decision Scott v FCT, which decided that a gift from a client to a person providing a professional service was assessable for tax. The students, 4th year undergraduates, were in a class of 40 and worked in groups of 4/5. After reading the full decision they researched the facts, particularly in relation to the parties, through finding transcripts, newspaper reports and Internet sources.
 
Besides the exercise of research skills the students learnt how to dissect information and how to understand the human and emotional issues behind the case report. The living facts illuminated and enhanced the discussion of legal principles.
 
In discussion, the storytelling approach was contrasted with that of clinical legal education, which also seeks to humanise positive law but begins with the facts rather than moving from principle to the facts. Michael’s approach was described as “case method plus”.

About Michael

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Michael Blissenden is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Western Sydney. He has taught in the LLB programme since 2002.
 
He was previously responsible for the delivery of a compulsory subject covering revenue law, and extensively researched various teaching methods attempting to stimulate student interest and engagement in this widely recognised ‘difficult’ area of the law, resulting in a number of refereed international publications. His research was recognised with an Australian Learning & Teaching Council Citation in 2009 “for instilling in tax law students motivation for lifelong learning through the use of narrative and storytelling”.

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Last Modified: 9 July 2010