Why Storytelling?

Educators have long known that the arts can contribute to student academic success and emotional well-being. The ancient art of storytelling is especially well-suited for student exploration. As a folk art, storytelling is accessible to all ages and abilities. No special equipment beyond the imagination and the power of listening and speaking is needed to create artistic images. As a learning tool, storytelling can encourage students to explore their unique expressiveness and can heighten a student's ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in an articulate, lucid manner. These benefits transcend the art experience to support daily life skills. In our fast-paced, media-driven world, storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind children that their spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art. Why Storytelling? More Reasons... Gaining Verbal Skills Becoming verbally proficient can contribute to a student's ability to resolve interpersonal conflict nonviolently. Negotiation, discussion, and tact are peacemaking skills. Being able to lucidly express one's thoughts and feelings is important for a child's safety. Clear communication is the first step to being able to ask for help when it is needed. Imagination Both telling a story and listening to a well-told tale encourages students to use their imaginations. Developing the imagination can empower students to consider new and inventive ideas. Developing the imagination can contribute to self-confidence and personal motivation as students envision themselves competent and able to accomplish their hopes and dreams. Passing On Wisdom Storytelling based on traditional folktales is a gentle way to guide young people toward constructive personal values by presenting imaginative situations in which the outcome of both wise and unwise actions and decisions can be seen.

Getting Started A Storyteller's Vocabulary List Plot: The sequence of events from which a story, play, song, puppet show, song, etc. can be made To restate in one's own words One of many possible presentations of the same plot People, animals, or other communicating entities in the tale The presenter of the tale

Retell: Version: Character: Narrator:

Basic Creative Tools Words: Spoken text created by memorizing or improvising language of the tale

Nonverbal Communication: Body language, gestures and facial expressions that contribute to the meaning of the communication Imagination: An interior creativity that generates language and physical expression in the storyteller

Raw Material Learn a plot to tell as a story: Find a folktale plot to retell in the folktale collections (398.2 section) in the library

Other possibilities:

Tell a personal or family story (Collecting Family Stories) Create an original plot (Devising Plot Structures: Creating New Tales) Present a literary tale by memorizing the words of an author

First Steps to Retelling a Plot Beginning: Picture the plot as a movie in your imagination. Start off retelling it by "chatting" it in your own words to make sure you remember what happens in the plot. Create your own version by retelling it over and over to different listeners until it starts to feel like a story. (Story is the art form; plot is the raw material from which it is made.) Middle: Have a strong beginning and end by creating an enticing first and last sentence. Improvise the middle. Using descriptive language, add detail to your basic "chatting" of the plot. Try to help your listeners see what is in your mind. Pretend to be all the characters by letting some of the characters speak dialogue. When you are the narrator, make sincere eye contact with the audience. End: Stand up and tell the plot as a story. Let your imagination make your body and face respond to the tale as you imagine it. Tell the tale to a partner or a few people. Ask a friend to offer you some coaching (Ask them to listen to you and then give you some practical comments). Practice helps to reduce stage fright. As you gain confidence, try telling the story in front of a larger group. Have Fun!

Learning the Plot of a Folktale The plot of a folktale is the raw material from which a storyteller artfully creates a story experience for a listener. Once a plot is remembered and can be accurately recounted, a teller can begin telling a tale by improvising language and sharing it as a "story." Artists in many art forms make use of plots as raw material. A plot can become a play, a book, a puppet show, a work of choreography, a musical theatre work, an opera, or a song. To a storyteller, the plot is the bare bones skeleton of the story, holding it together and allowing the teller to flesh it out with detailed description, innuendo, and dialogue. There is an important distinction between "plot" and "story." One could listen to several different storytellers present various well-crafted stories expressing the same plot, because each storyteller has his or her own unique perspective and vocabulary. A storyteller who knows the plot of a folktale "by heart" can uniquely use their power of description to express the sequence of events in many ways. The teller could simply "chat" the tale informally, remaining always the narrator. A more formal presentation could include dialogue between characters in the plot. The story also could be told in verse, song, or from the vantage point of one of the characters. Most basically however, in order to retell a folktale as a story, a storyteller must be able to remember "what happened." Remembering There are many ways, called mnemonic devices, to remember the plot or the sequence of events in a story. One great orator in ancient Greece remembered his speeches by picturing them as a place or building through which he traveled. As he came to each room in his mental journey he remembered sections of his oration. Modern storytellers could utilize a more contemporary image, the experience of cinema. Watching the plot like a movie in the mind allows for much creative freedom and encourages more intricate detail to emerge. If a teller truly "sees" the story inside their imagination, the next step is to generously describe "what happened." More meets the inner eye than is told by the tongue. It takes effort to translate complex interior images into language. One can picture a sunset and yet be speechless to describe it to another. Generosity of expression is at the heart of the storytelling process. One must be willing to share one's imaginary interior world with others.

Improvising language in the beginning of developing a story allows the story to grow. Memorizing words that have been written is certainly one approach to telling a story, but it has the drawback of a teller losing their grip of the entire tale when a single line or word is forgotten. If one can improvise as well as memorize then, if a line or a word is forgotten, one can always remember the basic plot and devise new language on the spot. Six Quick Steps to Retelling a Folktale 1. Read several folktales from a folktale anthology. 2. Select one you would like to retell. 3. Close your eyes and try to see the story's plot as if it were a "movie" inside your head. 4. If there are any parts that you were not able to clearly remember: Read the story again Watch the movie again 5. When you know the story by heart, it is time to try to tell it! 6. Ask a friend to be a good listener. Then have fun retelling the plot in your own words, picturing the story in your imagination while you tell it. Allow yourself to "become" the characters as well as the narrator. Mapping Stories to Remember Their Plots Keeping a storytelling journal of plots worth telling is a way to have an easily retrievable collection of folktales to share. Without writing out all the words, you can keep plot summaries in any form that works to help you remember them. The following are a few story mapping suggestions. Stepping Stones If you have ever stepped across a brook by hopping from one stone to the next, you know how it feels to quickly travel a distance by leaping from one secure spot to another. One effective mapping technique is to draw the stepping stones of a plot. Major moments that lead one to the next would be the noted points in the plot. Graphically, the map could take the form of a flow chart or circles with text inside. The important stepping stones need contain only a few words, or even a small picture, to remind the teller of the sequence of events as the eye travels across the page. Sunday Funnies The colorful cartoon box design of the Sunday funnies could be the model for a folktale map. Draw the folktale as a sequence of boxes that read like a cartoon. The sequence of events could be illustrated with simple images that help the teller remember specific points in the plot, not the words or the story. Important dialogue summaries could be included as thought or speech

"bubbles." Time Line A plot is like a timeline of events. Draw a timeline and put the action into chronological order. It is an interesting way to remind yourself of details that must be stated early in the tale. Story Bag Sometimes a smell or a souvenir will conjure up a memory of a past personal experience. Likewise, a storyteller could create a "bag of tales" by designating a small object such as a stone, a charm or a feather to remind them of the story. These objects become a repertoire list without words. Some tellers who use this technique enjoy spontaneously reaching into their bag and pulling out an object to determine which tale to tell or rehearse. Finding Folktales to Tell First...What is a Folktale? Folktales are oral narratives that do not have a singular, identifiable author. Expanded and shaped by the tongues of tellers over time, and passed down from one generation to the next, folktales often reflect the values and customs of the culture from which they come. Because folktale plots are generally concerned with life's universal themes, they also transcend their culture of origin to reveal the commonality of human experience. This ancient form of narrative communication for both education and entertainment, not only offers a window into other cultures, but also can be a revealing mirror of the comedy and pathos of our lives. Written Versions of Folktales Before mass media became a dominant storyteller for the modern world, local indigenous storytellers in cultures everywhere preserved the oral tales. Now, unless one can travel to situations where there are traditional tellers who carry on the oral tradition of their people, the best place to research multicultural folktales is to peruse the print versions available in the 398.2 section of the public library. What is 398.2? The 398.2 section of the library is numbered according to the Dewey Decimal System which organizes the book collections of public libraries and school libraries into subject categories to make it easier to locate literary materials. The folktales, fairytales and fables of the world are shelved in this nonfiction area. Both the children's section and the adult section of the library have a 398.2 folktale area. These simplified versions of multicultural oral tales are an excellent source of folktale plots with which to explore the storytelling process. By retelling folktales one can gain insights into the similarities and differences of peoples around the world.

Ode to 398.2 by Heather Forest I've traveled around the world without leaving home. I go anywhere my imagination wants to roam. I take a look, in a folktale book, and travel on the wings of words. Soaring to faraway places, ancient times, or magical spaces, I find a fantasy view... reading a book from the library shelf marked 398.2 (From Wonder Tales, a book by Heather Forest, Reprinted with permission by August House Publishers) Are Folktales True? Although folktales are imaginative narratives, they are shelved in the nonfiction area of social sciences. Ironically, these tales are "true" not because they actually happened but because there is often a bit of "truth" or wisdom embedded in them. Folktales offer profound insights into the cultures from which they come. Exploring Cultural Roots through Folktales By asking family members about the ancestry of relatives, people often discover that their family tree has roots in many places around the world. It is interesting to explore a folktale from one's own heritage in the 398.2 section of the library. Oral Tradition and Writing Since the invention of writing, oral tales may have always been written by community scribes. However, since literacy has not been commonplace in the world until modern times, old folktales were preserved from one generation to the next primarily through the spoken word. Guttenburg's invention of the moveable type printing press in 1450 allowed for the development of the book printing industry. Early folktale books helped to preserve oral tales. For example, in Europe during the 1800's a nationalistic fervor swept the European continent, and folklorists of many nations collected their regional folktales. This movement to collect tales to preserve traditional oral culture began at a time when industrialization was quickly changing the fabric of society. The rich tapestry of tales told around the hearth was being forgotten as people moved to the cities and gave up

traditional ways. Folklorists, both professional and amateur, began documenting oral tales in literary form. Important early collectors of European regional folktales were: Joseph Jacobs in England, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in Germany and Peter Absjornsen and Moe Jorgen in Norway. The tales they collected can still be found along with countless more contemporary multicultural anthologies and single story picture books in the 398.2 section of the library.

Storytelling Activities to Support the New York State Standards for English Language Arts New Learning Standards for English Language Arts have been developed in New York State that require students at all grade levels to demonstrate skills in speaking and listening as well as in reading and writing. The following activities developed by Heather Forest utilize the art of storytelling to explore speaking and listening skills. Speaking and Listening: 1. 2. 3. 4. For Information For Literary Response and Expression For Critical Analysis and Evaluation For Social Interaction

1. Speaking and Listening For Information Practicing Factual Recall Facts are data. Once data is collected we can interpret, analyze, evaluate, or apply it. Factual recall is somewhat mechanical but it provides the basis for more creative uses of information. Read or Tell a Folktale to the Class. Ask students to listen carefully to the tale so that afterwards they can answer simple, factual, non-subjective questions such as inquiries related to who, what, where, or when. Who: Name the main characters. What: Describe one action that a character in the tale did. Where: Describe a detail mentioned in the story that refers to the setting of the tale. When: Make a linear timeline of the sequence of events of the plot. Keep in mind that since listeners create, in their imagination, much of the subjective detail of a story that is heard, assessing factual recall must be based on information overtly contained in the story. (Thanks to Karen Morgan for

this thought) Unlike watching TV, story listeners create the costumes, scenery, and character details in their own imaginations. Factual questions should not be about subjective detail. Exploring Comprehension Once a folktale plot is understood as a sequence of events, students can use this information to explore further comprehension and creative arts activities. Interpretive Activities: Have students generally summarize the folktale. Have students generously retell the folktale in dramatic style with character dialogue, Have students differentiate between the characters by creating distinctive voice qualities and gestures for each character in the tale. Have students discuss their sense of the underlying meanings or messages in the story (moral)? Have students imagine themselves as a character in the tale. Would they have made the same choices? Why or why not? Compare two versions of the story's plot as told by different authors or by two or more cultures. Notice similarities and differences. 2. Speaking and Listening for Literary Response and Expression Generating New Ideas: Creativity allows us to take information and use it in innovative, unique, and interesting ways. Read Or Retell A Folktale To The Class: Ask students to write a sequel to the folktale predicting how another episode might evolve. Ask students to create a scene that happens before the plot of the folktale actually begins. Ask students to imagine the folktale set in modern times. Invent a different way to retell the folktale in written form from the point of view of one of the characters as a: Diary entry (communication to one's self) Newspaper report (a public communication) Letter to a friend (a communication to a trusted associate) Revise a classic fable by re-humanizing the animal characters. Give the generic characters names and retell the story featuring humans instead of animals. Have students plan a storytelling concert celebrating a cultural heritage. Have them investigate the culture by researching the ethnic group in the library or

on the Internet. Have each student learn a folktale from the culture. Bring in foods of the ethnicity and have a feast. Ask student to create the following narrative forms based on a folktale plot:

a picture book a puppet show a play a ballad a narrated pantomime show a storytelling presentation

3. Speaking and Listening For Critical Analysis and Evaluation Evaluating, Judging, Having an Opinion Storytelling encourages empathy and a respect for different points of view. Personal Taste: Ask students to listen to several folktales read out loud or retold from an anthology of folktales found in the 398.2 section of the library. Have students choose, from those read, a story they would enjoy retelling themselves. Some "point of view" discussion topics: What about the folktale chosen attracted the student? With which character did he or she identify most? Would he or she behave differently or the same as the characters in the tale who find themselves in a predicament. Understanding Public Opinion: Ask students to develop a list of generally accepted standards of communal behavior such as co-operation, honesty, and sharing etc. that encourage people to live together in a peaceful, productive way. Have students find an ancient folktale that expresses a useful societal value that might still be relevant today. Relativity Of Standards Listen to or read folktales from other times and places. Have students evaluate a folktale from its historical context. Discuss for example: At the time that the tale was told or collected were customs different from today? Listen to or read folktales from ancient times and places. Decipher and discuss a useful bit of wisdom that the plotline preserved for future generations. If a folktale in a published anthology offers a printed moral, ask students if they agree with the summation. Could they suggest a different moral for the same story? 4. Listening and Speaking For Social Interaction Speaking and listening skills are essential to participating in adult culture. The ability to articulate thoughts, feelings, and needs can contribute to academic, interpersonal, and professional success. For safety's sake, children need to be able

to express their thoughts and feelings so that they can ask for help and get what they need from adults. Good listeners learn more efficiently. Listening For Social Interaction Ask students to develop a list of attributes of a good listener. Discuss the list. Listen to each other's comments on the art of listening! Ask students to offer encouragement to a speaker by showing in non-verbal terms with their eyes, facial expression, and body stance that they are listening. This social courtesy creates an atmosphere where speakers will generously speak. Ask students to assess their own listening skills. Do they always pay complete mental attention to speakers or do they observe their mind straying to other irrelevant thoughts. Only the student can assess his or her own concentration patterns. Public Speaking Activities Have students orally share stories: by retelling folktales or reading a folktale out loud with expression. Have students give an oral book report. Have students create and present a first person monologue pretending to be a famous figure out of history or her story. Have students design a radio show for the school intercom system that includes: a school news report, live interviews of teachers or students, the reading of poetry, essays, or reports, announcements of world headline news. Practicing the Art of Conversation Have students work with a conversation buddy during class time to discuss, one-on-one, a particular issue raised in class. Have students become aware of their ability to take turns speaking and listening. Have students gather in small discussion groups to develop a group project such as a short skit based on a folktale. Have students speak to each other about experiences in their lives that resemble incidents in a folk or fairytale. Have students become sensitized to whenever a speaker is interrupted by others before a communication has been completed. A long pause during a speaker's statement does not constitute an opportunity for another student to cut in and speak. Have students interview elders in their family to explore collecting family stories. Telephone Skills: Practice using a mock telephone in front of the class:

Would the speaker of the following calls speak differently? How?

Call and ask to talk to a friend. Call a business and ask for information. Call an emergency number or police for medical help.

Discuss the social courtesies expected in answering a phone:

at home. as if student worked as a receptionist at a business.

Have two students engage in a mock phone call. Without looking at each other, have students practice listening and speaking, attentively waiting for an appropriate pause to hold up their end of the conversation. Do we listen more attentively to tone of voice, if we cannot see the facial expressions of our conversation partner? Taking Turns Talking: To prevent anyone from interrupting a speaker, use any object, such as a stick, a ball, a stone etc. and place it in the middle of a small discussion group. Then, take turns reaching for the object. Only the one who is holding the item can speak. When that speaker is finished speaking, the item is placed in the middle of the circle again for another to hold. This forum gives a moment of silence between comments in the discussion. Have a Salon: a conversation party Arrange a time when an invited group of friends gathers socially to discuss an interesting topic. The first meeting of the salon could be to develop a good list of discussion topics.