Sure you are - you don't have to be a polished professional to tell stories. Teacher and storyteller
Elizabeth Ellis explains the power of using stories in the classroom: "The stories the teacher selects
to tell would be decided by her curriculum needs, what academic goals she has... Nearly anything that
you want children to learn can be presented to them in story format. And much more powerfully than giving
them the material in some flat lifeless form." ("Using Storytelling in the Classroom, The Storyteller's Guide."
August House, 1996, p.145).
We are all storytellers. It's the way that humans communicate, store and pass on information. Each of us
tells stories every day: about the horrible traffic jam on the way home; about the way the kids acted at
the grocery last night; about the great movie we saw over the weekend. And we all have the ability to use
those same communication skills to tell stories to children. It is not necessary to tell them at the level
of a professional.
Don't worry about memorizing a story. Storytelling isn't about exact words. It's about images, and emotions,
and sharing those with your listeners. The trick to telling a story isn't knowing every word that is written
on the page. Rather, it is knowing how the characters feel and why they do what they do, and sharing that
knowledge and understanding with your listeners.
To begin, find a story you like - no, love. Stories we care about are ones we naturally want to share with
others. Read it a few times so that you know the sequence. Then close your eyes and really visualize those
characters, how they look and sound and move. Think about how they feel and react to the events of the story
and to each other. Look closely at the places where the story takes place, and take a moment to walk about
in those woods or sit in that sunny glade. Then think through the story, reviewing the sequence of events
and "telling it" to yourself. Check to see if you've left anything out, then tell it again, out loud this
time if possible. Now, go tell someone about your story!
"Telling about" a story is a little different from "telling" a story. It doesnŐt have the pressure of
performance behind it: you are simply going to tell someone about the story you have found. If, in the
process, you begin to bring the characters to life with voices and gestures, wonderful! But at this point,
simply allow yourself to vocalize the story to a listener.
After you have "told about" the story, you will have a good feel for how it works as a told rather than a
read story, and you will want to go back and reread the text to make sure you've remembered the salient
points. Now you're ready to tell.
Let the story live as you tell it. Bring your own images and emotions to it. Make a personal connection
with the story that will allow your listeners to personally connect as well. Don't expect perfection - you
might forget a detail and have to backtrack, or exchange one character's voice for another midstream. That's
okay. Storytelling is about connection, not perfection.
If you want to learn more about the art of storytelling, read Margaret Read MacDonald's The Storyteller's
Start-Up Book: Finding, Learning, Performing and Using Folktales (August House, 1993). It provides easy,
encouraging instructions that will help you jump right into storytelling and keep your head afloat. Other
good resources are in the Resource section of this guide.
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A RECIPE FOR INSTANT
STORYTELLERS
Don't have time to start a whole unit on storytelling? Want to find out if your
kids will be interested in telling stories? Here's a quick and fun way to
start.
Write three or four fairly universal topics on the board, such as "How I Got This
Scar," "My Most Embarrassing Moment," "I Was So Scared!" or "Learning to (ride a
bike, rollerblade, ski)."
Tell the class that each person will choose one of these topics, and tell a
partner about it for two minutes. Explain that you want the partner to really
be able to visualize what happened, so the teller should be as descriptive as
possible, including information about how things tasted, smelled, sounded, looked,
and felt. (You may wish to give an example by telling them a short, vivid story
about one of those topics yourself.)
Remind the class that each person will talk for two minutes, and that they must
continue to talk even if they run out of something to say. They are allowed to m
ake up the details. At the end of two minutes, ask the listeners to tell the speakers
what they liked about the story they just heard. Then reverse the roles, asking the
listener to become the teller, and allowing time for feedback.
Some hints:
1) Ask partners to face each other directly, to make listening easier.
2) Don't listen to any particular pair. Simply circulate to keep everyone on-task.
They will be less self-conscious this way.
Within minutes, you'll see students' eyes lighting up, faces and voices becoming more
animated, attentions engaged. That's the power of story! It is also a way to prove
to everyone that they are, indeed, all storytellers.
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