Days 2 and 3 Middle School Student Storytelling

I began the Vacation Arts Experience 2012 offered by EastConn  www.eastconn.org with the distribution of stories to the middle school age students. They had 3 minutes to  scan a story and move to the next, until they found one they wanted to read  through. By the end of their first class in storytelling they had read the story and created it in  Play-doh, felt or a cut and paste mural.  Here is the link to report on Day 1:
 http://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com/2012/04/teach-storytelling-to-middle-school.html

Repeating the story to partners as they finished a project reinforced the details in the student's minds, and had them telling right away. This felt board was made using a science fair tri-fold, a can of spray adhesive, and  a large piece of felt from Walmart!

Day 2 began with a cartooning session. We might call it storyboard, but these middle school kids are familiar with the term "cartoon". Tell your story in  8 squares. I had to remind them  frequently this isn't art, you are not being graded, it is a learning tool.

This felt image and the cartoon before it both depict the story of "The Harvest That Never Came". You can read it at www.aaronshep.com/stories.015.html  I appreciate Aaron Shepard's website it had the length and age recomendations along with genre, culture, theme. I found a couple of stories there that fit my needs with these kids.

Day 3

Using ideas I found through Karen Chace's website and blogs  www.storybug.com  and www.karenchace.blogspot.com  I helped the students focus on finer details of their story.  I shared my resources with the students, a side lesson in cooperative work with others in the same profession.

We used this art gallery to highlight specifics of the story. They liked moving from place to place to add to the gallery. Keeping them up and moving kept the energy flowing and the excitement high.

Students drew in their main character to that gallery. I asked them to think about what the character looked like to them. Labeling parts of the story helped when referencing it and the descriptions and images helped them become better acquainted with their story character.

Another gallery was filled with scenery images.

This gallery introduced smell to their story. What  does a jail cell smell like, deep in a forest what do frogs smell? What did Black Beauty smell at the horse fair?

The final Gallery was to tell about the weather during the story. Each stop on the gallery tour made them take time to think about description and  create an inner vision of the places in the story.

3 Hours  with me in 3 days and we need to share our stories. It is not enough, but what we had. I did not want a stage experience in this fast paced Arts camp and was happy when an 11th hour idea hit.   We moved into our room to find this campfire ready and waiting. It had felt flames and was accompanied not by Smores but Oreos!  Everyone sat in a circle and shared their stories and  cookies.

From that campfire two students found the strength and  desire to share stories with families at the end of the 3 day Arts Experience. I was able to share with families a brief background of the story experience and invite all the families to listen to their students story at home.

Young Voices; Narrative to Grow With

Young Voices

Young voices have stories

Young voices engaging issues with story

We need to bring more young people to the power of storytelling and the ways in which it will transform their world to a narrative they can share, learn from and grow with!

see what wikipedia says about Narrative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative

In Connecticut it is happening with  Campus Slammer a program of the Connecticut Storytelling Center  www.connstorycenter.org  Campus Slammer is an intercollegiate competition in story slams, five minute personal narrative stories shared for scores and prizes!

                                                                         

Mass Mouth Inc. has narrative story happening in the greater Boston area.  www.massmouth.org  Story Slams for adults and youth are scheduled regularly. Programs within the high schools are reaching young people where they are and giving them the tools to share their story. Check out the fresh faces of story in this StoriesLive® clip!

Youth Voice is defined and discussed in Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_voice

There is a National Movement as well led by the  Youth, Educators,and Storytellers Alliance / YES  contact them and read more at: http://yesalliance.org

                                                                  

Faces of  Youth in CT. Sharing Stories

 Join the fresh faces of storytelling in 2012

Contact Connecticut Storytelling Center to get your College in Connecticut involved in Campus Slammer 2012  csc@conncoll.edu

Got Narrative?

Past blog on Campus Slammer:

www.anansihelps.blogspot.com/2011/04/finals-are-coming-campus-slammer.html

Geneology of a Storytelling

Aetna, of Hartford, Ct., the insurance giant, has a huge auditorium at the home office. Yesterday ( Saturday May 8, 2010) I brought my Connecticut Stories to the Aetna 39 rs, their Retiree Group. The theatre lighting, railed balconies, carpeted main floor and huge stage behind me made for the perfect setting for sharing old and new tales from Connecticut. To add to it I had my own sound man taking care of me up in the booth and it was wonderful to have the use of such a nice system.

The stage, the floor & balcony seating would make an incredible venue for workshops as it was for performance. It is a real theatre right in the middle of the huge Aetna building. The main floor is flat and they say often has table seating for lunch meetings etc. Yesterday they pulled the tables and had rows of chairs in a semi circle for my performance.
I was booked by the Aetna 39rs a retirees group. Two members had seen me last year at St Isaacs an E. Hartford church. There I did a civil war performance and was booked for this meeting. I was booked to St Isaacs by someone who had seen me at The Historical Society of East Hartford, like a geneology these booking trails. I think it is important that we nurture the thought, "who is watching me today?" Somewhere in every audience is someone just thinking that they could hire me for a venue they are in charge of or pass my info onto the person in their social or professional circle who books entertainment and educational workshops. I was ready at the end to speak with a couple of people who approcahed me and asked about just that possibility. Passing along my buiness card and assuring them they could find plenty of info on my website. I wonder how far I will be able to track this geneology of performance places. I think i will keep a log of it for curiosities sake and to show me where my work comes from. Word of Mouth is still one of the best business builders out there and all it costs is the time to develope a product ( story) that listeners can grasp onto and take with them in memories.