Congratulations! You've been selected to be the resident storyteller at a school for an entire month. Your sponsors want you to see a core of the same classes every day and they're asking that these students be able to tell various kinds of stories with confidence by the time you leave.
After the initial rush of knowing that you have a month-long booking, you begin to realize that this is more than simply coming into a series of classrooms and telling stories. They want you to teach! But how do we carry students from the stage of rocking feet, hands nervously twisting clothing, eyes gazing at the floor to secure, bright-eyed, enthusiastic storytelling?
Your objective is to empower the kids to realize that they are all good storytellers. Give them permission to be excellent. You want to create frequent storytelling opportunities for students. Praise their strengths. And, at the outset, ignore their deficiencies. Most important, you need to know when to get out of the way.
I offer the following discussion to provide a touchstone of ideas for tellers who conduct or plan to conduct school residencies. I’ve developed the techniques over more than a thousand hours of classroom contact with children from kindergarten through junior high. The various exercises to be discussed are arranged in the order in which they usually occur in the course of a residency although individual class chemistry will often determine the appropriate timing of a particular exercise.
I always begin school residencies with the first few days in the classroom devoted entirely to my telling stories. It's the best way to introduce myself, build trust with the children and begin to reveal the wide variety of material available from world cultures, personal experience and literature.
I continue to tell stories throughout the residency but by the third or fourth day with a class I introduce the idea that the students themselves will begin to participate in activities at the front of the room. I like to begin with The Silent Actor.
The Silent Actor
In any class there is the full range of students: those who want to get up right away and begin telling, those who will come with a little coaxing, and those few who want to dive under their desks and die rather than tell a story. “The Silent Actor” is a good exercise to break the ice for those shy students, yet the most confident of students enjoy the activity.
I learned the silent actor exercise from Jay O’Callahan. The activity’s purpose is to allow each student to experience the telling space in front of others without having to actually perform. After taking part in it, most kids find it easier to come up for further activities. The exercise is conducted as follows:
I ask the students to imagine what kind of a famous person they would most like to be in any field: music, dance, visual arts, theater, storytelling, literature, medicine, sports, and so on. I then ask them to write their full name and choice of endeavor on individual slips of paper which I collect.
Kids often fold the papers closed. Let's say I open the first slip on the pile and it says “Rebecca Stanley, rock singer.” Rebecca Stanley comes forward and stands stage right or left behind me, ready to walk to the center stage of the class after the introduction. It is important to present each student with consistently high energy as though they are a world-renowned personality.
Be sure to remind the seated students that it is unacceptable to try to make the person in front of the class laugh or break concentration in any way. When the students realize that they’ll all soon be in the same situation, only rarely will one try to make the “personality” laugh.
I then improvise the introduction: “Ladies and gentlemen! Are you ready to rock and roll?! Are you ready to get rad and be bad?! Tonight at the Winter Palace we are pleased to present the rock and roll woman you've all been waiting for. She's just back from her European tour where she sizzled from Paris to Moscow! Here she is! Rebecca Stanley!”
The class welcomes the “star” with a warm round of applause. The individual takes his or her place at the front of the class and says, “My name is...” and gives his or her full name. The “Silent Actor” then stands with an erect but relaxed posture for 30 to 45 seconds, feet and hands still, eyes engaging those of the other students. The rest of the class is required to be silent, looking attentively at the “famous personality.” You're looking for the intensity created by the silence and concentration of the students.
After sufficient time has passed, I initiate applause, with the class joining in, as though we have just watched an excellent performance. The student then returns to his or her seat and I call the name of the next “celebrity” who will come to the wings for introduction.
What happens if you open a slip of paper and it says, Robert Bessemer, Veterinarian? “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight at the International Symposium on Veterinary Medicine, we are pleased to present the man whose research into viral disease has saved the lives of countless animals! Would you please welcome our keynote speaker, Robert Bessemer!”
I have also discovered that, after watching the exercise a few times, students enjoy being the master of ceremonies and introducing their friends. Students usually work as a team to orchestrate the other's introduction, do the exercise, then reverse roles.
I don’t use the Silent Actor in every situation. Some classes don’t need it because a greater proportion of the kids are self-confident and can proceed right on to more orally expressive activities. The Silent Actor is good for those really shy ones but once you begin the cycle, the rest of the students will want to try it.
Personal Stories Through The Magic Box
The Magic Box is a good early exercise and confidence builder that can encourage even the most timid of students to relate a story. The idea of the Magic Box came to me one day while showing my daughter small mementos I had acquired in my various travels. Each item—a shark’s tooth, a ring, foreign coins, beads, and so on—had a history and a tale.
After telling several of the stories, it occurred to me that I had remembered various rich incidents while looking at the items and that perhaps the box would help others remember life experiences that would lend themselves to narrative. Thus was born the Magic Box.
I covered a medium-sized cardboard box with red satin and padded and lined the interior. Into the box I placed several items: a sea shell, a pine cone, a thimble, a tiny doll, an antique bottle, a sheep bell, a toy wizard in the likeness of Merlyn The Magician, a toy bulldozer, a hand-cranked music box that plays “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” a corncob pipe, a toy sheriff’s badge, and a small dog collar. Finding the objects for your own Magic Box is an enjoyable quest.
I begin the session by introducing the items from the Magic Box with considerable fanfare. I place each object upon a satin cloth, the way a jeweler would display treasures, until all items from the box are on the table. I tell a few of my own short stories that the objects remind me of as a way of example to the students.
I then ask the children to look at the objects for a few minutes and mentally note any stories or incidents that come to mind.
When I ask for volunteers, at least one or two students are almost always bursting to tell a story. In the beginning stages of the Magic Box, I offer only encouragement and praise for their stories. Fine tuning comes later when the students have developed a sense of safety and well-being.
As the students become more comfortable with the exercise, I encourage them to impart a sense of place and, if there are people involved in the story, a sense of character by describing the experience through as many of the five physical senses as they can: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. I might ask questions like: “What did your grandpa's voice sound like? What did it feel like when you picked up the turtle, the rock, the beetle? Look at the place where you're standing in your story. What do you see? Do you hear sounds? Is there a smell in the air?” The orientation through the five senses stimulates students to examine their memories in considerable detail and use creative language skills to describe them.
After a student has been to the front of the room two or more times, I begin to offer suggestions on volume:“Use your playground voice, we need to hear you”; eye contact: “Your eyes tell the story as well as your voice.”; word emphasis: “Punch that word!”; vocal pacing: “Slow down now, pull us in with a voice that is sharing a secret.”; and gesture: “Show us the stone, see it in your hand.”
I constantly draw students into their own images, asking them to perceive the story with their five physical senses and then to tell us what they experience.
When do you make the corrections? When a student is fragile I do not interrupt the story, rather I allow the student to finish the entire narrative, then go back to segments of the story and ask her to retell it employing my suggestions. When a student is more confident and I know she won't lose her train of thought by my interjections, I explain before she begins telling that I might interrupt her in the middle of the story and have her retell a passage. This takes a light hand. Don't try to fix everything at once in one story. You want to provide a method of self-discovery so the student can reflect, “Hey, that works!”
The Magic Box is a natural introduction to further work in personal stories. Follow up with the “old never fail” question: “Where did you get your scar?” Scars come from adventures, bicycles, horses, other kids. And the children have probably already told the story to someone.
The following themes also spur good personal stories: “After this happened, I was never the same.” This topic brings up rites-of-passage stories for the middle grades and junior high students. “My most embarrassing moment” is also a good topic for middle school and junior high kids. Believe me, they like to talk about it! “The time I was lost,” “The most afraid I’ve ever been, or when I had to be really brave,” are all good subjects for personal storytelling activities.
Creative dramatics
This exercise works well with even timid students and provides ample opportunity for characterization, emotional expression, pantomime, and fun. Creative dramatics never misses with grades one through three.
Many folk tales lend themselves to creative dramatic interpretation - acting out the story. Because of the usual class-period time constraints, the challenge is to provide all kids in the typical 30 student mainstream classroom the opportunity to participate in the exercise. Plan on a couple of days to complete the sequence.
I have found that the popular story “Wiley and the Hairy Man” as told by David Holt on his release, The Hairy Man and Other Wild Tales, provides a great framework for dramatic interpretation.
Other good formats are to be found in certain selections of Aesop's Fables and simple folk and fairy tales. Choose stories that have a good measure of physical action so the emphasis is on movement and characterization.
Of course, the first thing you have to do is tell the story. Afterward, explain the exercise to the students. Since I've found “Wiley” to be so effective, I'll use this story as an example.
The scene is played out by two students at a time. You may have to feed them the story sequences at first but very quickly they remember the events and begin to improvise their own dialogue. That's what you're looking for! Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to punch holes in stereotypes by selecting, for instance, a quiet, diminutive girl to play the Hairy Man. It's great if there is an open area in the classroom in which to play out the scene. That kind of space works best, but even a crowded front of the room can become “the swamp”.
Wiley's mother has told him that he has to fool the Hairy Man two more times and the old Hairy Man can never come back and bother them again.
The exercise begins as the student playing the part of Wiley comes slowly into the “swamp,” acting very nervous and afraid, while the Hairy Man waits behind a desk to jump out and startle Wiley. Emphasize the importance of the two characters reacting to each other as the scene develops. When the Hairy Man jumps out, Wiley recoils in surprise. With the two adversaries finally meet face-to-face, Wiley baits the Hairy Man into a conjuring contest, challenging him to change himself into first any large animal that Wiley names, then a medium-sized critter, and finally a small animal. The Hairy Man acts out the spontaneous change from animal to animal and can provide the animal voices as well. Each time the Hairy Man changes into a different animal, Wiley should react to the change, building the tension and finally resolving the scene in triumph when Wiley pantomimes stuffing the Hairy Man “into that sack he always carries” and throwing him into the “Tombigbee River”, usually the classroom trash can.
You can have the students change places and act out the reverse roles. If the rest of the students become restless, especially after they have already completed their turn, have them make swamp noises as Wiley comes into the picture.
When the same scene is being acted out, however individually creative the students are, the exercise can become repetitive for the storyteller. Remember that the experience will be fresh and new for each of the individual kids as they do it. Hang in there!
Oral Interpretation
The Oral Interpretation exercise will achieve dramatic results with most students in a short, five-to-seven minute session but requires considerable intensity and concentration for both the student and the storyteller. The exercise invites students to experience dramatic oral expression. The entire process requires two to three days for the class to complete.
Oral Interpretation can usually be introduced with good results during the second five-day segment and is most appropriate for fourth grade and older. I have made the mistake of introducing the exercise too early before the kids had a good sense of what the storytelling class was all about. My hasty introduction of the exercise made a particular group of sixth-graders feel very anxious and uncertain. In other instances I have encountered a class newly introduced to storytelling embracing the exercise with enthusiasm. In final analysis, you’ll have to sense the class chemistry and use this exercise if students seem safe and self-confident.
After a short discussion of how stories are built through a sequence of images, I tell a story containing particularly vivid and varied imagery. I then ask students to select a single image from the story. They are instructed to describe the image on paper, writing intensively for three to five minutes in order to wring out all the details they can see or create. I don’t limit students to the story’s actual details but encourage them to create their own from their chosen single image.
The students are asked to write quickly but neatly enough that they can read their own writing. The three- to five-minute time limit seems to intensify the writing and prompts students to put words on paper without too much hemming and hawing. It also places a desirable limit on the amount of text that you'll be working through with each reader.
The kids usually rise to the challenge with a will, describing many unforgettable scenes with far richer ideas than I supplied in my story. But this is only the first part.
I ask each student to read his or her piece in front of the class. I stand twelve to fifteen feet in front of the student, close enough to effect immediate eye contact and an intimate one-on-one dialogue.
I listen to the piece straight through the first time with no interruptions. I then ask the student to read the first sentence of the piece again. If there are any volume problems, I use the first sentence to make corrections by walking to the back of the room for a moment and inviting the student to shout to me, asking him to bounce his voice off my hand and make an “umbrella of sound” over the room. At this stage of their development volume and projection are usually tied to the student's self-confidence. Shy kids will have a difficult time yelling even when given the opportunity. When they finally do it, hearing their own voices fill the room gives them a point-of-volume reference that you can return to if they again become difficult to hear.
After teaching the student the ropes of the exercise in the first sentence, I then ask her to read the piece sentence by sentence, coaching her between sentences: “Take enough time to see the images. Let us see that you see what you're saying. Let those words blow out of your mouth like the wind. Volume, volume—we really want to hear your wonderful story. Show me with your hands. Take your time, slow it all down. The pause is your most powerful tool. Stretch that word, make it last five seconds. Slow down; slow down... Give me some enthusiasm!”
The readers need to feel a nurturing support from the storyteller and fellow pupils. I maintain an intensive listening stance while the students read. I give them every encouragement to let them know that they are successful on every reading. Students begin to stretch their words like rubber bands. They whisper, they shout, and the images pour out.
We work through the piece sentence by sentence and the piece in its entirety as a conclusion. Almost all students demonstrate a marked enhancement in creativity of style and expression as contrasted with the beginning of the exercise.
When I see that the student is responding confidently to my suggestions, I ask them to put the paper down and simply tell what they have written from memory. It doesn't have to be the exact wording. Just remember the flow of images and keep the same enthusiasm. Most students do a credible job of relating their written work from memory and discover the freedom and spontaneity of not having something in their hands as when they're working from text.
Because the entire process can use up two or three days of class time, I often tell a short story to open each session in order to shift their mental orientation to a more favorable mode for image creation.
The kids thrive on the personal attention. The storyteller will be working as hard as the students so use the Oral Interpretation exercise when you’re feeling fresh and energetic. Each student only has to do it once. You have to do it thirty times! It's worth it.
Summing up
There are so many more things that can be accomplished in a school residency. Students can tell stories from the point of view of a particular character in a basic folk tale like Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Red Riding Hood, Billy Goat's Gruff, and the like. These tales are very familiar to children. You can suggest that students tell one of these basic folk tales in gibberish, or made up language, which short-circuits their text dependency and requires that they rely upon the sequential images of the story.
You know the seeds you have planted are beginning to sprout when students approach you with stories they wish to tell the class-a folk tale heard or read is often the first solo attempt. You don’t have to assign a story to learn. In fact, I recommend against it. I’m in the practice of introducing the students to all of the options of how to tell stories. Tell the students where they can find the stories but allow the kids the freedom to pick a story with their hearts, the way practicing storytellers do.
Provide the time for these pioneers and those who follow to tell their stories. Be flexible. Your way of telling a story isn't the only way. Watch for the moment when your students would rather tell their own stories than listen to you. Know when to back away and watch them fly. That’s how the serendipity that makes all the work worthwhile can come to pass.
A last comment: Nurture the classroom teachers as you nurture the students. After I completed a residency last Fall and had departed the school, one of the reading teachers was so heartened by the progress of her students that she continued to schedule daily storytelling activity for ten to fifteen minutes of every reading class hour. This reading teacher called me a month later and enthusiastically reported that one of her most bashful students, a girl who literally hid under her desk the first time she was asked to tell a short, personal story, had mesmerized the entire class with a thirty-minute telling of Jack and the Giant's New Ground. It works. You can leave a legacy of joy and story that continues to flourish after you leave.
