ARTIST/TEACHER COLLABORATION: TWO HEADS ARE ALWAYS BETTER THAN ONE!

by Julie Della Torre

As those of you who follow the blog know, SAI received a grant to work in a school in inner city Paterson. We have written about the project before, but I thought I’d go into a bit more detail about my work with a remarkable Kindergarten teacher, Diane Rudd. We have worked together for the past two years and this year SAI will offer follow-up support. The following will illustrate how we developed our relationship and our lesson plans.

First, we had a year of getting to know each other. Diane needed to see what a storytelling session entailed. What would happen? How were students supposed to respond? How could storytelling fit into the curriculum? I needed to get a feel for her classroom environment. How much flexibility would be allowed? How rambunctious could we be?

The following year was more intense. Diane was going to become a storyteller and incorporate storytelling into her curriculum. We spent quite a bit of time planning before we started this two-pronged project. First, she looked at her reading curriculum and assessed her class. She decided she wanted to address, setting, emotions and feelings of characters, and ‘beginning, middle, end’. These were concepts she would be working on for the entire school year. The schedule allowed us to focus on one of these aspects each week. We fell into a routine in which I would tell a story and model a lesson one day and the following day she would tell a story and present the same lesson. The story repertoire for the class grew. Diane kept a record of every story told on big sheets of paper. Drawings, maps, story language hung on chart paper all around the room.

As we went along I was modeling storytelling techniques as well, which is how I learned to tell stories. We also met during the day for mini-workshops on specific issues. She kept a journal of her process for learning stories. A big part of the process was finding appropriate stories for her class. As she searched for stories w3e had good discussions about what story might be a good one to tell as opposed to read with the illustrations. The lesson plans we developed for her class were simply exercises I do myself to learn a story. As she watched and then practiced the exercises in her journal and finally presented them to her students she was learning the story.

The lessons included much acting out, usually parts of the story told, not the whole story. After working with the story orally, dramatically and demonstrating on the board the students went back to their seats and worked on paper. This routine of listening, speaking and then writing was a key component of the storytelling experience.

The exercises we developed could be used during the rest of the year no matter what story was read or told. Some of the exercises included:

Setting- storymapping. We actually made a masking tape map on the floor and walked the story, stopping to visualize the setting. After looking at real maps the students drew maps of the story.  

Emotions/feelings of the characters: Working from photos we gave the students vocabulary for different emotions. We practiced embodying these emotions. When we acted out parts of the story we encouraged the students to physically show us how the characters felt. Students drew their favorite character.

Beginning/middle/end: after telling the story we figured out what was the beginning, middle and end and we made tableaus. These were then drawn on paper in the proper order.

Working together with another professional is always stimulating and enlightening. I’m looking forward to a year of working collaboratively with colleagues, teachers and other professional artists.

The Work We Do

by Julie Della Torre

Karen and I attended an Early Literacy Seminar in May. The seminar was hosted by the Turrell Fund and, as they fund one of our preschool programs in Paterson, we were invited. All attendees were working in programs funded in part by the Turrell Fund.

The seminar was given by Dr. Blanche Podhajski, President of the Stern Center for Language and Learning in Vermont.

The lecture was centered on a program she calls THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING. Using the alphabet as an outline Dr. Podhajski highlighted aspects of learning, particularly learning to read.  She emphasized over and over the ideas that reading can be taught, that any ‘program’ should be based in scientific research and that there is much more to reading than figuring out the phonemic awareness and connection. Underlying all of what she said was the concept that oral language is the underpinning of ALL reading. As storytellers, oral language is our tool.

Here are some highlights of Dr. Podhajski's presentation:

What do children need to learn to read? Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, Comprehension and Motivation. Babies are working on all of these auditorily and orally. When we sing to babies, bounce nursery rhymes and tell beginning stories to them we are preparing them for future reading. As storytellers we are always aware of how we build vocabulary, comprehension and motivation with our songs, poems and stories. Everyone wants to hear a story. Motivation is the heart of the matter.

Dr. Podhajski provided a checklist of ‘Skills for Thinking (cognition) and

Skills for Doing (behavior)’from Dawson and Guare, 2009. Storytelling and story listening are natural modes of building and strengthening these skills. Think of how much our listeners need as they listen: working memory, metacognition, response inhibition, emotional control, sustained attention, flexibility. All of these (and more) just to hear a story and then to comprehend a story.

Listening comprehension is still the biggest predictor for success in reading. (A Nation at Risk, 1983 and Podhajski 2000). Oral language is the basis of all learning. The Common Core Standards list speaking and listening as anchor standards from pre-school through 8^th grade. When our listeners listen to our oral stories and then participate in oral discourse and discussion they are building skills needed for all future learning. They are doing real work in a joyful non-threatening way. Our work is serious work.

Joyfulness and play are also essential for learning. Here is a quote attributed to Diane Ackerman: “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” Joyfulness goes right back to motivation. Story is the way we learn and storytelling is playing with language and stories. What joy!

These few highlights were reiterated many times during Dr. Podhajski’s talk. For each of her 26 talking points (following the alphabet) oral language, listening, speaking and motivation were the foundation of all.

My SAI work with preschools involves presenting parent workshops. The Turrell Fund is providing a follow-up seminar in the fall and I/m hoping to attend a session on Family Literacy. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Story Work and Play

by Gerald Fierst

Gerry Fierst telling to pre-schoolers at the Zimmerli Museum

“Gerry, hi Gerry,” the chirping voices of three and four year olds fill the halls as they and I arrive at Stokes Early Childhood Learning Center. Four storytellers from Storytelling Arts have been in the school through the winter into spring, and the impact of our work rings in the corridors as the children call our names in delight.  Today is a storytelling day.  

Preschool storytelling is a holistic experience, involving body, mind and imagination.  Stories teach numbers and sequencing, vocabulary and conceptualization, history, social studies and science, but also values and awareness of the world around us. 

One of my favorite pre school stories is a Brazilian folktale of Monkeys in the Rain.  Swinging through the trees the monkeys play.  When the daily rain falls, and they get soaked, the monkeys decide to build a house, but the sun soon comes out and the monkeys never build the house that they will need tomorrow.  Lesson:  Build Your House Today.  The words are simplistic, repeated n patterns of three.

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Rain

Brrr, I’m Cold

Brrr, I’m Wet

Let’s Build a House.

Sun

Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Next Day Let’s Play

But the language is only one ingredient of the experience.  Hands moving above one’s head in rhythm to the chant of the words.  Fingers falling to make the rain.  Clapping palms on the lap to make the sound of the rain forest squall.  Fingers connected to make the roof of a house.  Opening arms to make the returning sun.  Joyful hands in the air to proclaim play.  The whole child is involved in unison with his/her whole community.  Words, rhythms, and images are intimately connected to the affirming experience of organized and energetic activity within the classroom.  Emotional and cognitive experience is associated with verbal skill, and play becomes a basis for learning.

A story like this provides multiple beginning lessons: about environments- in this big world where do we live and how do we live; about the science of weather;  about the geography of the earth; about biology and the diversity of life.

Storytelling in the classroom is not entertainment.  Children who are placed into a rich verbal environment learn abstract thinking and become more self directed.  Storytelling is really about process, not product.  Most stories have familiar plots, but the experiential journey of listening and responding is the spark of invention that eventually can light a whole life.  An anthropologist once told me that the moment we became human was when we could imagine as if it were real and then set off to make it happen.  Every pre schooler should have a resident storyteller, not to read a book, but to tell stories and play and dream with words.

Stops Along the Way

by Paula Davidoff

In a castle by the sea, there lived an old lord who had no wife or children living, only one granddaughter whose face he had sworn he would never look at for as long as he lived because on the day she was born, his favorite daughter had died.

Illustration by John D. Batten

That is the beginning of Tattercoats, a persecuted heroine-type tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairytales. I love to use this story when I’m teaching because that first sentence implies three generations of family history and, therefore, leads to many questions. When did the Old Lord’s wife die? How many children did she leave behind? What happened to those who weren’t the father’s favorite? Who was the granddaughter’s father? Was he the husband of the favorite? If so, why isn’t he mentioned; if not, what is the story of the child’s conception?

The list of questions becomes longer as the story goes on to introduce an “Old Nurse” (Did she also nurse the Old Lord’s children? What happened to her children?), a gooseboy who plays a magic flute (Is he really a boy or does that title simply establish his role as a servant? If he is a man, could he be the father of the heroine? a child of the Old Nurse?), and geese who, eventually, turn into page boys (Were they always enchanted boys? Or, in their boy form, are they enchanted geese? In either case, who is responsible for the enchantment?).

Everyone with whom I discuss this story, from fourth graders to people old enough to be the great-grandparents of fourth graders, talks about the hidden stories they infer from the text as if they were talking about real people, people they know and care about. And, of course, on some level they are, because the characters in folktales represent us and the people in our lives, and serious conversation about these characters helps us understand ourselves and guide our behavior.

In the story, when the Old Lord learns of his favorite daughter’s death, presumably, from childbirth,

He vowed never to set eyes upon his granddaughter for as long as he lived. Then he sat down in a chair by a window overlooking the sea and began to cry great tears for the daughter he had lost. He sat there crying for so long that his tears wore through the stone window sill and ran down in a little channel to the sea, and his hair and beard grew long, into his lap and over his knees, until it wrapped around the rungs of the chair and grew into the chinks in the floor.

It was this description of grief that made me decide to learn to tell Tattercoats. The old man’s anger and despair wrung my heart, and the fanciful description of his hair and his tears, metaphors for his emotions, bound me to the tale as firmly as the grieving father was bound to his chair.

Long ago I learned that there are moments in every story that cause some listener to think, Wait, what just happened? That makes no sense. These moments are usually not the ones that we think of as demanding suspension of disbelief; they are not about flying carpets or talking animals or singing bones. They are about the listener and they are the story’s way of saying, Yes, look here; here there is something for you.

One of the first times I recognized this phenomenon was early in my storytelling career when, during a workshop for teenage mothers, we were discussing the Grimm tale, Fitcher’s Bird. The women had listened closely, punctuating the telling with gestures and remarks: shakes of the head, groans when the first sister decides to peek into the forbidden chamber, gasps at her fate, and so on. By the end of the story, dead girls had been brought back to life, the heroine had evaded capture by dressing herself in honey and feathers, and the sorcerer had unwittingly carried his captives back to their home in a basket on his back, but the first question I got from my audience was,

Wait a minute. I don’t get it. Didn’t that room full of dead bodies stink?

The question floored me. I didn’t articulate the first thought that came to mind: This is a story, not a scientific treatise. In fact, I didn’t offer any answer. Instead, I fell back on that old teacher trick for gaining time to think and asked, Anyone have an idea about that? Answers varied from It’s just a story, to The chamber was magic, to Maybe the room was refrigerated or the door was airtight, while I wondered, Why did that detail break this woman’s suspension of disbelief?

I didn’t get an answer, although, in the weeks that followed, as I got to know the women, I was able to speculate on possibilities that helped lead me to the conviction I stated above, namely that when something in a story breaks one’s ability to stay in the tale, it’s the story’s way of saying, You need to look closely at this moment.

When I first read Tattercoats, I recognized the Old Lord’s reaction to the latest chapter of his family tragedy, but I think that what stopped me at that moment was the, as yet unconscious, realization that the image held a lesson I needed to learn. At the time, my own family happiness and security was being challenged by events out of our control, and there were many days that I wavered between anger at the fates who had visited us with misfortune and despair at my inability to change the course of events. As I worked in the story, telling and retelling, writing and thinking about its characters, visualizing places and events, my feelings shifted. The change was subtle and influenced by life events that had nothing to do with my story work, but I think that the story was also there, beneath the surface, working its spell.

Years later, when I revisited Tattercoats, it surprised me. The moment that had originally captured my attention no longer seemed central. This time it was the heroine’s story. My focus was on her ability to find her way aided only by the joy she found in the gooseboy’s music. And that’s how story works. The answers are there, but they shift with time and changing circumstance. We often don’t hear them if we don’t need them, sailing through a tale from Once upon a time to happily ever after without a pause. It’s when we stumble that we need to stop and examine the path.

Paula Davidoff