User:Wendypeng

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.

More Reason...
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.
 * Gaining Verbal Skills

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.
 * Imagination

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.
 * Passing On Wisdom

How to coach beginner storyteller?

 * Always begin comments with a compliment:  What did the storyteller do well?
 * Remember: Enthusiastic, respectful listeners help storytellers improve!

Basic Criteria
In order to evaluate the oral skills of the teller one must be able to hear the teller.


 * 1) Did the teller speak loudly enough?
 * 2) Did the teller seem to want to really tell the listeners the story?
 * 3) Did the body language of the teller distract from or help the storytelling?
 * 4) Did the teller tell the whole story?

Listening Partner Feedback
Only the listener can answer these questions. Storyteller Can Ask Listener:


 * 1) Did the story keep your attention?
 * 2) Could you picture what I said?
 * 3) Did the characters seem real?

Only the teller can answer these questions. Storyteller Can Ask Themselves:


 * 1) Did I picture the story as I was telling it, without letting my mind wander?
 * 2) Did I picture the characters in my imagination and pretend to "be" all of them?
 * 3) Did my words flow easily or was it difficult to find the words to express my thoughts?

Important Rehearsal Tip
Have students practice telling the story to one person at a time. Keep changing partners. as confidence builds have them tell to small groups. When well-rehearsed, students can tell to the class.

To give practice a focus arrange a: Storytelling Festival Day

The primary goal of a student festival is to help students feel confident speaking publicly and to encourage considerate group listening skills to support each teller.

Have each student prepare to present a short oral story (5-7 minutes) first to one other student and then to larger groups, until the telling is done for the entire class.

Retelling Folktales
Folktales and fables are one of the oldest educational tools through which cultures have passed down values and lore from one generation to the next.

Listening to stories can be a vivid creative experience. Most of a story told takes place in the imagination of the listener. Through the magic of language and the storyteller's skill, stories can come to life with landscapes and costumes as colorful and complex as the creative listener devises.

First Steps to Retelling a Plot
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.)
 * Beginning:

Have a strong beginning and end by creating an enticing first and last sentence. Improvise the middle.
 * 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.

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.
 * End:

Retelling falktale story
[http://sites.google.com/site/wendypeng523/storytelling ' Something The Big Bad Wolf Must Tell You... ']

Hello!! I was very famous that I did not know why.-.-? Everyone called me “Big bad wolf”, because all of you thought that I did a lot of bad things in many stories, such as “Three little pigs”, “Little red hat”, and “Seven little sheep”. These stories told you how bad I am that I was always hungry and I liked to eat cute little animals or little girls. However, actrually it is not ture....
 * Author: Peng, Hsiao-Wen
 * Description:

The True Story of the Three Little Pig Did the story of the three little pigs ever seem slightly biased to you? All that huffing and puffing--could one wolf really be so unequivocally evil? Finally, we get to hear the rest of the story, "as told to author Jon Scieszka," straight from the wolf's mouth. As Alexander T. Wolf explains it, the whole Big Bad Wolf thing was just a big misunderstanding. Al Wolf was minding his own business, making his granny a cake, when he realized he was out of a key ingredient. He innocently went from house to house to house (one made of straw, one of sticks, and one of bricks) asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Could he help it if he had a bad cold, causing him to sneeze gigantic, gale-force sneezes? Could he help it if pigs these days use shabby construction materials? And after the pigs had been ever-so-accidentally killed, well, who can blame him for having a snack?
 * Author:Jon Scieszka
 * Illustrator:Lane Smith
 * Description:

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig A talented team ingeniously up-ends the classic tale of the three little pigs, and the laugh-out-loud results begin with the opening illustration--a mother wolf lounges in bed, her hair in curlers and her toenails freshly polished, with her three fluffy, cuddly offspring gathered round. The wolf siblings, amply warned about the big bad pig, construct their first house of sturdy brick, a medium which resists the pig's huffing and puffing but is no match for his sledgehammer. Their abodes become progressively more fortress-like, and the pig's implements of destruction, correspondingly, grow heftier, until the wolves try another tack and weave a house of flowers. The fragrance so intoxicates and tames the pig that he and the wolves live together happily ever after
 * Author: Eugene Trivizas
 * Illustrator: Helen Oxenbury
 * Description:

<span style="color:blue;"Storytelling Lesoon Plan
This collection of storytelling activities-developed by storyteller/author Heather Forest for her storytelling workshops with students, teachers, and librarians-can be expanded by educators into language arts lesson plans to support speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.

Storytelling Lesoon Plan & Activities