Chicken Soup for the Storyteller's Soul

The vice president/head of HR at the title and escrow company where I work has agreed to let me hold the president, vice presidents, managers, and sales team hostage at one of their Monday Morning Sales Meetings! I get to come in and do an inspirational/uplifting story to help focus them and encourage them to persevere through the poor real estate market!

I am looking through various children’s books, as well as Chicken Soup for the Business Soul type books for ideas. The owner loaned me her copy of Who Moved My Cheese, which could work well, too. The only problem with it is that the entire management team has read it.

(On the plus side, I can be as weird and out there as I want…after all, I am the one they called on to lead “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” at the company retreat…they expect me to be a little quirky!)

Hack Hack, Cough Cough!!

So, I was extremely excited to share a story with the class online tonight. I had decided to do an oral version of a Robin Hood and Marian story that I adapted from the middle english ballads as my undergraduate honors thesis.

I practiced. I timed myself. I found a cool picture.

Then it hit...the Shang-hai funk.

My father brought back a great souvenier...a sore throat/cough/cold germy thing! It got so bad that they sent me home early from work to rest my voice in hopes that I would be able to talk on the phone tomorrow!

I had to write Jenine and ask for a one week extension on my story...sad!

On the plus side, now I can come up with a wicked cool visual to go with the story!

Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

I gave my first recorded storytelling performance last night. I have posted the video to the right...
It was for the midweek children's bible class at my church. I had eight kids there, ranging in age from 5 to 12, and a fellow teacher who videoed me. After the story we did some activities based on it, and then I had the kids retell me the story in a fill in the blank oral format. It was amazing how much they retained!

Things I learned:
1. The camera adds weight...yuck!
2. Children who are normally perfect angels during bible class turn into little hams when they know there is a video camera on them.
3.Having repeated phrases in a story does help the kids pay attention and remember things!

On a side note: When I told the kids that the question about Baal going to the bathroom was actually in the Bible they were shocked and all grabbed Bibles off the shelves to look for themselves. It was very gratifying...who knew that a well told story could encourage reluctant readers to read the scriptures!

Story Chosen!

I have decided upon a story for Wednesday night...Elijah and the Prophets of Baal. I think I can tell it in such a way as to transcend the age differences. (It has a little bit of everything...drama, humor, violence, and a good message.)

I decided against using the flannelgraph this time, since I didn't have enough notice to properly rehearse with it. I will use the set for my Sunday morning class soon.

I am having this class recorded, and will post it soon.

Now, if I could just make a final decision about what to tell to the class Thursday night...I am actually mulling over doing Elijah again...any objections to a religious story in class? (It wouldn't be preachy...I promise!)

Stories for the Ages

My church has bible classes on Sunday mornings and on Wednesday nights. Sunday mornings they are divided up by age group. (I teach the four and five year olds.) However, due to a drop in attendance and a desire to build unity among the youth, all of the classes from two and three years through junior high combine on Wednesday nights. Midweek also has teachers rotate through in pairs on a monthly basis without a set curriculum.

I had been talking to one of the Wednesday night teachers about this storytelling course, and she offered to let me do a story this Wednesday night when her teaching partner would be gone. I jumped at the chance since this means a larger audience than my regular Sunday morning class, which often only has 2 or 3 students. She left my topic and choice of story wide open, and said she would plan her part of class around me.

Now I have the dilemma of finding a story that will interest children from 26 months through 13, boys and girls, and that has moral/personal application and activities that can coincide. I thought of some Bible stories that would be fun to tell and interest the kids (like Ehud which is really bloody…), but many of these don’t have a clear direction for the rest of the class period. The stories that do have clear directions, either are harder to tell or I am worried won’t be easy to tell in a multi-age setting. I have a lot to think about. I am looking at William Bennett’s Book of Virtues for stories that aren’t biblical that I could tell and then tie in with a Bible story.

On the plus side…the church does have a FULL set of Biblical flannelgraph characters and flannel boards! Fun for me…

Flannel and Franklin

One of my co-workers has an adorable little boy named Franklin. He and I are buddies. He will tell you so. I have hung out with him a couple of times at Chuck E. Cheese, and read him stories and entertained him during company baseball games and Christmas parties. Franklin goes to daycare at a little school right behind our office, and even now his mother is trying to arrange for me to do a storytelling session there on one of my lunch breaks! Yay!

I am working on stories for the session...on the assumption that is going to happen!

One that I definitely want to do is a retelling of The Mitten by Jan Brett. It is a cute story, and I think I have figured out a really cool hook. I am going to make the animal characters out of felt, or find small figurines. Then I will get a mitten and show the animals crawling in one by one. I was concerned about the animals sizes until I remembered that in Jenine's Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly the animals weren't to scale.

More bulletins as ideas hit me...

Everyone Knows that Badgers Are British!

The morning before 561 met, I was sitting at my aunt's kitchen table when she realized that her youngest, a kindergartner, had not yet completed her reading log for school. We had less than an hour, and had to read somewhere in the vicinity of 10 books to her before her bus came. I was happy to oblige.

While my cousin ate her breakfast, I zoomed through Danny and the Dinosaur, Snow White's Friends, and Just in Case You Ever Wonder. Then I came to one of my favorite books of all time: Bedtime for Frances.

I opened it up and began to read, remembering all the times it had been read to me. After the first few pages or so I looked up because my aunt was laughing and giving me a strange look. My cousin was also looking at me strangely.

"What?" I asked.
"Why are you doing a British accent?" my aunt asked me.
"Was I? I hadn't even realized it."

All of the prior books I had read with my normal everyday voice, but for some reason when I started Bedtime for Frances, I had begun reading the story and doing all the voices with an accent. Apparently, at least in my mind, Frances is a British badger. I continued to read, maintaining the voice.

Perhaps, if I have time, I will tape myself reading the story...with the voice...and post it here.

LIS 561: Storytelling

I am currently a graduate student in the online Masters of Library and Information Science program through the University of Washington. This quarter I am taking a course on storytelling: LIS 561. As a part of the coursework, I am going to be maintaining this blog. It will feature my thoughts on storytelling, encounters I have with materials, my experiences as a storyteller and an audience member, and various other anecdotes and quotes. I will include videos of myself performing, both alone and in front of an audience. I also plan on featuring at least one picture book a week that I highly recommend for reading aloud to children, and maintaining lists of resources I have found!

I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I am enjoying the course!