My life as an M.O.

The words “motivational speaker” jumped off the page at me. I have been called A LOT of things in my life -– everything from creative to hyper to short – but never in my whole entire life had I ever been called a “motivational speaker,” and yet, that’s what I was being asked to be in a project I began this month for Storytelling Arts.

In my brain, a “motivational speaker” is someone like Tony Robbins -– particularly in that Jack Black movie from a few years ago “Shallow Hal.” Kind of tall, in a dark business suit, sprouting phrases like “Think outside the box!” or “Follow your bliss!” while running power point presentations in large ballrooms. And, while I have trouble even finding the proverbial “box”, and, if becoming a storytelling dancer clown who teaches yoga isn’t following ones bliss, I don’t know what the heck is –- I just couldn’t cozy up to the label “motivational speaker” (hereto referred to as M.O.) But, like we outside the box bliss followers sometimes have to do –- I had to make it work. Lucky for me, folktales saved my un-Tony Robbins-like rear end!

I don’t know where real M.O.’s get material that will at once teach life lessons, while keeping a crowd interested and hanging on their every word. But, all I had to do was go to my friends and teachers -- my folktale anthologies. Within the world of folktales are a great many stories that teach us things we all need to learn. Like the Jewish story “Feathers,” that tells of a woman who, after spreading rumors about everyone, is sent before the judge. To teach her a lesson about the dangers of gossiping, he instructs her to take a feather pillow outdoors, shake out all the feathers, and then try to get them back in again. When she finds that the feathers blow away, and that she can’t get them back inside the pillow, the judge informs her that it is the same things for words. Once they leave our lips, we can never get them back again.

It was “Feathers” that I told a group of 5^th and 6^th graders in my role of M.O., and the “Ooooh, I get it!” that came at the end of the story made me smile. The discussion we had after that story, told me that there was no better entry into this topic than the wisdom of the ancients who had created this gem of a tale. Back then, they didn’t have power points – they had stories. Stories that spoke, and continue to speak in a language we all can understand. Stories that don’t hit us over the head with a point, but rather, offer themselves up so that everyone can discover the lessons wrapped in them on their own.

Whenever I’m asked what I do for a living, I always joke and say, “I’m a storyteller/dancer/clown/yoga instructor/chimney sweep –- just kidding about the last one!” But, maybe I’ve got a better, and perhaps truer, punch line, maybe, thanks to my pals, the folktales, I can say I’m a storyteller/dancer/clown/yoga instructor/motivational speaker/chimney sweep – hey, the chimney sweep part is too funny to lose!!

I Saw a Young Man Fall in Love With Language

JULIE PASQUAL is a self proclaimed “creativity junky” whose first art form was dance. After graduating from New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, she danced and sang in numerous musicals across the country and Off Broadway. She has acted in everything from Shakespeare to the work of young playwrights in NYC high schools. Along the way she learned stilt walking, clowning, American Sign Language, and how to tell stories. Her storytelling work encompasses all her skills as a performing artist, as she brings every aspect of a story to life. Her stories have been heard in such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Jersey Storytelling Festival, and in schools, libraries, bookstores, hospitals, radio and private events across the tri-state area. As an artist for Hospital Audiences Incorporated, Julie performs in halfway houses, drug rehabilitation centers and senior citizen homes. She is also the voice for several children’s and young adult audio books for the Andrew Heiskill Library for the Blind and Handicapped in NYC. When not telling tales she can be found performing as a dancer in shows across the country and as a clown doctor for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, entertaining children in NYC hospitals.

I saw a young man fall in love with language this month. While that sight would always be a

gratifying thing, always make me do my happy dance just a little

bit, this was even more remarkable, because this event took place in a small

classroom, not in a school, but in a prison.

Over the last year and a half, my work with Storytelling Arts has led me into three Youth Detention Centers. And, each time I speak to people about this work, they are dumbfounded. “Are you nuts??? Aren’t you scared?? Do they listen??” – are some of the questions I hear from concerned and confused friends and family. I smile, because, frankly, I have asked myself the exact same things. So, as much for myself, as for anyone who might be reading this, I’ll answer those very sensible queries.

1) Are you nuts?? Of course, I am, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this!

2) Aren’t you scared?? Yes, but not in the way you might think. I’m not scared because I think I will be in any danger. I don’t envision burly men charging across the table trying to “shiv” me. No, I’m scared – well, nervous, actually, that I will not have the goods to reach through to these

young people – these kids. Because that is what they are – kids. They are children – even if they would never call themselves that – children who have made a bad choice. And who amongst us, has not? They are human, and the one thing I know “for sure” – as Oprah likes to say - is that humans are more alike than different. We all feel emotions, we all, in one way or another seek connection. The art of storytelling is all about connecting with the audience. A tale simply isn’t a tale until it has been told, shared with other human beings.

That is my worry -- that I will not be committed enough, articulate enough, interesting enough to touch these youths. Because folktales have the goods to inspire, teach, and move EVERYONE. With their archetypical characters, intriguing plots, they leave behind them a wake of interesting points to mull over, and to learn from. And, when I see audiences – be they five year olds, or the inmates in the Detention Centers, respond to storytelling, I know it’s not me, It’s the story. All I did was put it out there in a way they could hear. So, that’s my fear, that I won’t find the “way in” with my telling. Because if I can…well, let’s move onto the next question, shall we?

3) Do they listen?? YES, THEY DO!! I have seen a young man, who I was told was a double murderer, follow my every word like his life depended on it. I have seen another young man, whom I thought was asleep; lift his head, and his voice, to defend a character in a story. And, this past month, I saw that young man fall in love with language right before my eyes. He, and his “pod” had been told a wonderful story, by a wonderful storyteller – Paula Davidoff -- the day before, and he and two other fellows stood in front of their peers to retell it. LET’S JUST STOP AND ACKNOWLEDGE HOW AWESOME THAT WAS!

While the other two young men were more confident and outgoing, this fellow – I’ll call him J, was shy, stiff, and self conscious. With his hands tightly clasped behind his back, and his eyes lowered, he only spoke when his two companions “threw” him the story. But, then, half way through the story or so – he began to describe a horse as “strong and bold.” As he said those words, he too, became strong and bold. His body came alive, his eyes afire, and anyone could see his relish in saying that combination of words “strong and bold”. The little group then told another tale – this one they invented, and this time J was animated right from the start, interjecting wonderfully fluid language and body gestures throughout the piece. It was like seeing a flower blossom – the entire energy of the room had shifted and changed.

One could say this was a moment of victory, because that story, those words “strong and bold,” had reached into J, and touched on something that had lay dormant within him. He forged a true connection with that tale. And, connection is not only what storytelling is about, but what life is about as well. For to quote a book I just finished reading, “When you practice mindful connection, your life feels meaningful, and so it is.”

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Masks like those below were produced as part of a Storytelling Arts residency at the Mercer County Youth Detention Center in 2009. Students created these to depict character traits of people in stories as well as in real life -- including themselves.

Crossing Over

Most of the posts on this blog have focused on the use of storytelling as a tool for child education. And that’s appropriate. After all, part of the mission of Storytelling Arts is “to promote and impart the living art of storytelling to develop literacy.” But the mission statement goes on to say, “and nurture the human spirit.” Although I believe in the deep core of my being that developing literacy is one of the best ways to nurture the human spirit, it’s not the only way that stories can nurture us. Stories have the power to touch the spirit in every human being, literate and illiterate, child and adult, by bringing magic into their lives.

In the ancient world, the borders between the dwelling places of human beings and the world of faery were all around. The crossing points were in all places that were neither here nor there: the threshold of a door, the midpoint of the stairs, a stile between two fields. Certain times of the day or the year also opened access to the other world. Traveling gypsies used to halt their caravans and stand still in the minutes surrounding noon (the moment when it’s not longer morning but, by definition, not yet afternoon), lest they accidentally cross into fairyland. The doors to faery also open at midnight, at dawn and dusk; at equinoxes, solstices, and at the midpoints between the seasons: May Eve and Halloween. Back in the day, a careless step in the wrong direction or at the wrong time could promptly land you in the other world.

Over the years, the magical places of the earth have receded farther and farther from our day-to-day lives. Now a days, it’s not easy to wander into them. (You hardly ever hear of anyone doing it anymore!) For the most part, this is a good thing. Tradition teaches us that hobnobbing with the fair folk is, at best, a mixed blessing. They don’t share our sense of propriety or morality; they make no distinction between good and evil; they are completely selfish beings. But, be this as it may, I think our lives lack a kind of mystery that they must have had in the days when the two worlds existed side by side, when a fall of golden leaves might have become a sprinkling of fairy coins, or a chorus of crickets the sound of fairy fiddlers.

Yet, even now, in certain times and places the portals between this world and the other are still accessible. Quiet forests are such places. Halloween is one such time. Even the most unimaginative, work-a-day people are susceptible to enchantment in such times and places. (On Halloween, for example, the beautiful and terrifying Queen of Faery holds court for a surprising medley of ordinary folk.) Under their spell, our priorities fall into balance and our lives are suddenly full of promise.

However, we must leave the forest and go back to home and work, and Halloween comes but once a year. How can we hold onto that thrilling, anything-is-possible feeling we get when we find ourselves brushing against the boundary of faery? The answer to this question is as simple as opening a book.

Find at least an hour in every day to escape the mundane. Swim with selkes and mermaids. Rub Aladdin’s magic ring. Weave a spell with Prospero. Go into battle with King Arthur or Finn Mac Cumhal. Travel to the underworld with Orpheus. Journey to Mordor with Frodo and Sam. Dream with Ebenezer Scrooge. Myths, fairytales, and fantasy novels open magic doors that allow us to dwell amongst the Gentry without a lick of danger to our immortal souls. On the contrary, I believe that these respites from our daily world strengthen the soul, revive the intellect, nurture the spirit.

Notes from the NJEA Convention

The SAI workshops at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City went very well indeed. I presented a workshop on Storytelling in the ELL (English Language Learners) Classroom. I also participated in fellow Storytelling Arts Storyteller Paula Davidoff’s writing workshop (Learning to Write/Writing to Learn: Strategies for Assessment) and the writing and performance workshop (Building Community through Collaborative Writing and Performance) she presented with Carolyn Hunt.

Here’s an overview of what took place during my three-hour workshop...

Storytelling in the 21st Century

21st Century Skills

The theme of the convention was based on the new standards for learning in the 21^st Century. (www.21stcenturyskills.org ) Our proposals had to show how our work fulfills these standards. What is so interesting is how the skills apply to both student performance and to professional development. The standards expect teachers to become the models for their students’ learning.

learning and innovation skills

21^st century skills for learning and innovation are infused throughout the core standards and professional development standards. These learning and innovation skills speak generally to

• Communication Skills
• Social/Cross-Cultural Skills
• Global Awareness Skills

Specifically, the skills focus on:

• Creativity in thinking and devising collaborative situations
• Critical thinking
• Communicating clearly
• Collaboration
• Flexibility
• Adaptability
• Self-direction (even in collaboration)

THE ORAL ART OF STORYTELLING

If you’ve ever heard a story told you notice at once that the 21^st century skills are the foundation of storytelling. Listening to stories is a collaborative act between teller and listener. It is a creative act. When students and teachers learn to tell stories, they are applying and utilizing the 21^st Century skills in a real way.

ORAL LANGUAGE/COMMUNICATION

• Beautiful and rich language is heard and used
• Figurative language is heard and used
• New vocabulary is heard and used in context
• Questions are heard and formulated
• Opinions are offered and supported

VOICE/CLEAR COMMUNICATION

• Pacing leads to fluency
• Pitch leads to understanding
• Volume leads to clear communication

BODY AND FACIAL MOVEMENT/COMMUNICATION

• Comprehension comes from gestures
• Comprehension comes from facial expressions
• Comprehension comes from body movement

ELEMENTS OF STORY

• Story repertoire is developed
• Story structure is heard naturally
• Characters are explored.
• Dialogue is heard naturally
• Common conflicts which will be alluded to throughout life are discussed

CHARACTER EDUCATION

• Stories illustrate respect
• Stories illustrate perseverance
• Stories illustrate honesty
• Stories illustrate responsibility
• Stories illustrate moral courage
• Stories illustrate compassion

Discussion of the 21^st century skills and the oral art of storytelling was the foundation of the workshop. Stories were told and it became very clear how a storytelling experience -- both listening to stories and learning to tell stories -- offers unique support in the ELL classroom. Storytelling helps realize skills needed in the 21^st century.

Stories were then told as examples of how teachers can bring storytelling into their classroom. The skills of the 21^st century and the skills of storytelling were referenced throughout the workshop.

• Teachers can learn to tell stories themselves
• Teachers can work collaboratively with colleagues, students, parents, and members of the community to bring storytelling into their classrooms
• Teachers can teach students to tell stories
• Teachers can bring in professional storytellers
• Teachers can bring stories from all cultures into their classrooms

Stories are a unique tool for teaching global awareness and illustrating how a student fits into the culture of the world community. The oral art of storytelling can create an interdisciplinary and collaborative learning environment in the classroom by relying on the cultural dimensions and life experiences of the wider educational community. Listening to and telling stories force us to think creatively and critically and to be flexible and adaptable in order to communicate clearly with others.

Classroom Talk

I’m Paula Davidoff and I have a school story to tell.

Every Thursday evening, I co-direct a troupe of teenage girls who tell their own stories through writing and performance. The troupe is called Girls Surviving, a named coined by one of our first troupe members as a comment on the one-day-at-a-time nature of a girl’s journey into womanhood. In our weekly workshops, the girls listen to traditional stories, read poems and plays, and talk about their own life experiences as a prerequisite to writing an original, multi-genre performance piece which they present to a community audience.

We always begin each session with a ‘check in’ – a time for each person to catch the rest of the troupe up on what’s happened to her since our last meeting. This week, one of girls, I’ll call her Tanya, told a story about her ongoing persecution by a teacher. Before she could finish, two of the other girls who were in the same class interrupted her.

“You should just keep your mouth shut in that class, girl!” said one.

“I don’t know why you talk to Ms. (teacher) like that,” added the other.

As the girls began to discuss the incident, it seemed clear that Tanya’s perception of what was happening with the teacher was in conflict with the perceptions of her classmates. When we completed the check-in, my co-director, Carolyn Hunt, who is a skilled director of Playback Theater, suggested that the girls act out the scene between Tanya and the teacher. In accordance with Playback protocol, she asked Tanya to select actresses to represent herself, the teacher, and some other students in the class. Then, with Tanya’s help, Carolyn set up the scene and directed the actresses. As the scene played out, it became clear to the adults in the room that the real-life teacher had very little control of the class, that rather than being a model for how she wanted students to act, her behavior was a reaction to the way the students behaved. It seemed equally clear that the girls, those who had actually witnessed the events and those who had not, weren’t aware of this. The idea that an adult, especially one in a position of authority, might feel fragile or uncertain seemed alien to them. Tanya’s defensive and, frankly, obnoxious behavior toward the teacher was based on the assumption that the teacher was scheming to humiliate her when it seemed to us that the teacher was just trying to survive a class of bored and unruly students.

At this point, anyone reading this entry might comment extensively on what’s wrong with this classroom dynamic, including problems with the child’s home, the teacher’s training, and the school administration’s approach to discipline, but that’s not what I want to address. I want to think about communication, specifically communication in the classroom.

In many, if not most, of the communities in this country, our school populations have become more socially, ethnically, and economically diverse. This diversity is overlaid on the cultural differences we expect to find from one household to another, regardless of socio-economic status or ethnicity. These unique differences in our students, as well as the differences between students and teachers, create obstacles to communication. The obstacles may range from the obvious problems of the student who has the immense task of trying to communicate in a new language, to the hidden problems of the child who is trying to unravel the subtle differences between the expectations of his mother and his teacher. Students and teachers come to the classroom with widely different and disconnected bases of prior knowledge, as well as prejudices, fears, and misconceptions about each other that can make teaching and learning impossible. In order to engage in meaningful educational discourse, we need to find a non-threatening common ground for making the gaps in knowledge transparent, and for acknowledging and discussing fears and misconceptions. Storytelling can create this common ground, this “third space” to accommodate the culture of school and the diverse cultures of our homes and neighborhoods.

Storytelling offers an approach to text that is different from the more conventional classroom reading practices of silent reading, group reading, and teacher read-alouds. Like a read-aloud, storytelling is social, but because the teller is always in eye-contact with the audience, the interaction between the audience and the text is more immediate and intimate. Audience members respond to the teller’s facial expressions and gestures as well as to her words as she embodies characters, represents landscape, indicates the boundaries of the settings, and provides a visual association for the voice of the narrator. The audience reads the teller’s visual presentation as an integral part of the story’s meaning. These non-verbal indicators help to clarify meaning for students who may not know the meaning of a word or understand its connotation. They also add emotional resonance that aids comprehension.

The multi-modal aspect of storytelling bridges gaps in student knowledge as it sets parameters for acceptable verbal and non-verbal communication. The teller’s dynamic interaction with the audience lets her know immediately whether or not students are comprehending the text. When she sees a puzzled look, she can clarify for the listener on the spot, with a movement or reiteration. Because she is watching the students’ faces, she can also assess and monitor student engagement throughout the telling. The teacher-as-storyteller makes herself more accessible to students by stepping out of her teacher persona and embodying other, familiar characters: siblings, fools, and bullies; moms, queens, and witches; dads, kings, and giants. Children recognize the characters and events in stories and connect them to their own life experiences. In this way the stories provide the classroom community with common metaphors for the real conflicts and celebrations children experience, both in and out of school.

Stories lead to the kinds of conversations that engender learning because they give us glimpses into the inner and outer lives of people we, otherwise, see only in the context of the classroom. Stories lead to discussion by posing questions that leave children wondering. They also lead to other stories, the stories of the teacher’s and her students’ experiences. The information and insight we gain from these conversations reveal to us gaps in knowledge, make us aware of fears, and help us understand misconceptions, with respect to ourselves and our students.

It seems naïve to think that Tanya’s teacher could solve her classroom control problems by telling stories. After all, she has curriculum to cover, and she is, in fact, dealing with problems caused by ineffectual parenting, her own poor preparation, and unsupportive administration. However, she is also trying to teach a child whom she hasn’t made an effort to know. Tanya has been a strong, cooperative member of the Girls Surviving troupe for two years. She’s a risk taker, a problem solver, and a good collaborator. I doubt her teacher has ever seen that side of her. She probably has the same kind of misguided opinion about Tanya that Tanya has about her.

I think that sometimes we, as teachers, are so focused on covering curriculum that we spend our time in the classroom talking to students rather than with them. The irony, of course, is that it doesn’t matter how many pages we cover if students aren’t learning, and if students don’t find a reason to become engaged, can’t find some connection to the material or the presenter, they’re not learning. I think that finding time for telling and sharing stories, both personal and traditional, is an investment in student engagement. Stories can humanize the teacher in the eyes of his or her students. And, when we listen to our students’ stories, we began to learn what they know and how they see the world, a element crucial to our ability to teach them.

Teaching Moments

In a folktale, when the son sets off on an adventure, his mother asks him, “Will you take a half loaf with my blessing, or a whole loaf with no blessing?” We, the reader or listener, know the right answer to this question, and if the son asks for the whole loaf, we know it means he has the wrong priorities, that he’s doomed to fail in his quest and, perhaps, come to some dreadful end. However, we may ask (and children often do ask), Why can’t he have both the blessing and the whole loaf? Or, why not simply bless him, hand him the half loaf, and send him on his way? Why does the mother make her son choose?

Folktales are full of such moments, those incidents that can stop our suspension of disbelief and make us wonder, why? or how? We accept without question the existence of magic rings and glass mountains, but our imaginations bulk at matter-of-fact questions like, Why can’t Snow White just take the dwarves’ advice? or, Why does Ashenputtel’s father allow his new wife to treat her so badly? I think that these moments in a story, the incidents we stop to question, are the story’s way of saying, There is something important here. When the story ends, come back and examine this place. You’ll learn something true here, something about yourself.

In recent days, we have been exposed to one of real life’s unfathomable moments, the suicide of a bright and talented young man; a death ostensibly caused by the sort of mean act we expect from the older brothers and evil stepsisters of fairytales, but that we find inexplicable when it is perpetrated by real life brothers and sisters. In the days following Tyler Clementi’s tragic death, I have heard people speculate on the social phenomena that may have encouraged the actions of his tormentors: social networking and the ease with which modern technology allows the spread of images and information; the religious and cultural roots of homophobia; the aura of unreality that Reality T.V. has lent to life’s most serious and intimate interactions. Some or all of these things, no doubt, were instrumental in forming the thought processes that resulted in the heinous acts of the two seemingly unexceptional teenagers who set off the string of events that ended in Tyler’s suicide, but they don’t really explain how these two children came to hurt a third child so deeply. The explanations also do not give us a hint about how we can protect our children from being the instigators or becoming the victims of thoughtless brutality.

Among all the speculation about blame, the question I do not hear being asked is, how can we protect our children from the evils they are bound to meet as life leads them further and further from our side? Is there any way we can prepare them to resist the temptations presented by their social environment, or help them develop the inner strength to fight despair when they’re hurt by the actions of others? How do we help our children develop the moral compass they will need to navigate life?

As a mother and a teacher, these are questions I have been thinking about for over thirty years. They are not the kinds of questions that have simple answers. We can’t protect our children from the vicissitudes of life. We can only try to prepare them to expect that life will not be easy and that it will demand sacrifices. I believe that stories, especially folktales and myths, are one tool we can use to arm our children against the difficulties they will face in their lives. These ancient stories teach by telling about life in all its patterns and possibilities. They teach that heroes don’t succeed at every task, that sometimes they make the same mistake over and over again, that they are humiliated by their rivals, and passed over when they are most deserving. The stories also teach that, whatever the consequences, if a man wishes to be happy, he must stand by what he knows is right. Like the son in the folktale, a hero will always be asked to make a choice, and the choice will usually involve some sort of sacrifice: the whole loaf or the half.

We know that the magic in stories is not real, but sometimes we forget that it is often true. The truth in folk and fairy tales transcends the facts of life. In the real world, we can’t fly by lacing on magic sandals, escape danger with the help of a magic cloak, or travel to the underworld to bring back a lost love. These are the actions of our dreams, of the intensely private world of our unconscious, the place where we store our magical gear, our wishing rings and cloaks of invisibility, and where we keep our own personal witches, faeries, and demons. It’s the realm that may hold the secrets to our happiness and stability, if we could only decipher the things that happen there. Folktales and myths give us access to the world of the unconscious in a more orderly and systematic way than do our dreams. Our examination of the puzzling moments in story can help us learn to protect ourselves and teach us to fight the forces of evil that would overcome our psyches.

When children hear the old stories, they instinctively know that the hero is a stand-in for themselves, and I believe that when they hear something in the story that speaks directly to them, it stops them long enough to make them wonder, Why? This is the teaching moment, the place in the story that will fortify the soul if the questioner stops to examine it. Sometimes the answers are hard, but if we take the time to help our children look for them, we help them build the moral foundation that will support them as they grow, help them make good decisions, and help fortify them against despair.

It’s not easy for parents to teach these hard lessons to our children, but I think it’s essential to their well being. The nymph, Thetis, tried to give her son, Achilles, both her blessing and the whole loaf. Knowing he was fated to die young, she tried to divert his fate with charms and tricks. In his infancy, she dipped him in the River Styx, making every part of his body except the eponymous tendon by which she held his tiny leg impenetrable by weapons. As he approached manhood, she tried to make him invisible to the kings who would take him to Troy by disguising him as a girl and placing him in the women’s quarters of King Lycomedes’s palace. Finally, realizing that she could no longer keep him from his final battle, she procured for him a wondrous shield made by the armorer of the gods, Hephaestus. An Immortal, herself, Thetis didn’t understand that the mortality from which she was trying to protect her son held the key to any possibility he had of happiness or peace of mind. She couldn’t protect him from death, but perhaps she could have taught him to value life. Perhaps she could have focused less on the vulnerability of his body and thought more about how to help him develop his qualities of soul. And when we read the story of her son’s last days in Homer’s Iliad, we realize how much he could have used that help.

I think there is little we can do to prevent our children's suffering. However, I think we can try to prepare them to expect that life will sometimes be sad and frightening, and to give them strategies for surviving those times. One of the ways to accomplish this is by telling and reading them stories in which heroes make choices, suffer the consequences, and learn to overcome. This is what the folktale mother knows. This is the story teaching us.

posted by Paula Davidoff

Paula Davidoff is a writer and storyteller who has been a teaching artist since 1994. In addition to her work with Storytelling Arts, she is the director of a storytelling-based literacy program in the Morristown, NJ and co-director, with playwright Carolyn Hunt, of Girls Surviving, a troupe of teen girls who tell their own stories through writing and performance.

Report from the 18th Annual NJ Storytelling Festival

Yet another rainy festival. We should probably call it ‘festival weather’ at this point. Nonetheless, people showed up, tellers and listeners and all had a good, cozy time. As Carol Titus, current coordinator of the festival said, “We have no trouble in the rain, we’ve got it down pat at this point.” The rain held off enough for short walks around the beautiful Grounds For Sculpture.

The day started with a workshop for storytellers and teachers. Judy Freeman had us clapping, snapping singing and chanting. Perfect for a rainy Sunday morning. Judy Freeman is best known in New Jersey for her annual Winner’s Conferences she holds throughout NJ. At these well-attended conferences she calls out the top hundred children’s books published in that year. She gives quick book talks and demonstrates activities and suggests thematic ideas for the books.

The two-hour Storytelling Festival workshop had more of an emphasis on storytelling. Judy’s forte is the quick, snappy story that is perfect to use as fillers. These are stories in their own right. Peter and Iona Opie say that the nursery rhyme is the child’s first story. And just think of the journeys taken by Jack and Jill, and the mouse up the clock, and our own selves as we go to market to buy a fat pig.

Judy Freeman helped us all recall the old camp songs and risqué children’s’ chants we all told to each other, though never to our parents; songs and chants that are based on these older rhymes.

Then she ran through drawing stories, paper folding stories, finger plays and stories with puppets.

I am amazed at Judy Freeman’s generosity. She gave totally of herself darning the workshop. And we all went away with a handout of all of the stories she used. The pages of storytelling tips we received can also be found in her book, Once Upon a Time: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader’s Theatre With Children in Grades Pre-K-6. It is a book worth looking into, full of tips and techniques for learning how to tell stories.

Her handout also included a list of Internet storytelling links that she developed with Carol Titus.

The rest of the day was filled with stories and song. We have such wonderful storytellers here in New Jersey. Many of you reading this blog will be familiar with what a festival atmosphere is like. We have four stages set up with four performances taking place at once. The audience is encouraged to dip into as many sessions as they wish. It is at a festival like this that we realize how many stories there are in the works, and how many different styles of storytelling there are as well.

But, the Festival is also a gathering where we as storytellers are able to meet together, hear each other’s new work and catch up on personal stories. It is in this way that we support each other refresh our commitment to the community of storytellers around the state and are nourished by wonderful stories.

My favorite spot is always the spot where the Storytelling Groups perform. For those of you reading who may not know, New Jersey has at least six storytelling groups representing all corners of the state. When the groups perform their ‘set’ at the Festival, three or more members take turns telling a story or two. We learn a bit about their group, what their meetings are like, what they do in their meetings, how often they meet, where else they may tell as a group, and who their members are. Usually the members telling are not professional free-lance tellers, but tell to their families, library classes, classrooms, church groups, and any other such gatherings. It is delightful to discover new storytellers and new approaches to storytelling. I think this year we were all impressed with the upcoming young teller Shifra Willick.

I would also like to say ‘hats off’ to Carol Titus for pulling the whole thing together this year. She had many to help and SAI was well represented on that front. It was great seeing you all there and hearing many of you tell. But, one idea I think Carol carried out on her own was the announcements to be made before each session. She covered every aspect of storytelling in New Jersey… the groups, events, the Internet and the Telebrations to be held around the state. It was such an easy, unobtrusive way to cover so much information. Go to www.njstorynet.org to see what she has developed.