Discovering a Brave Old World

by Paula Davidoff

A few days ago, my husband and I were discussing the meaning of the word “brave.” 

“It can’t simply mean courageous,” he said. And, to clarify, he quoted Miranda’s famous line from The Tempest,“O brave new world that has such people in’t.” In this context, the word means something like “magnificent,” “splendid,” or “impressive.” Used in this way, it’s a good description of a story I’ve been immersed in for the past month. 

Hunting Scene from the Shahnameh

This year I’m in the middle of a three-year project in which Gerry Fierst and I are collaborating with a group of ELA teachers at Passaic Valley Regional High School in Little Falls, NJ. It is an exciting project, the ultimate goal of which is to create a storytelling culture in the school. The six teachers with whom we’re working are learning to embed storytelling and storytelling-centered activities in their ELA curricula. Professional development for these teachers takes place both in and outside of the classroom. 

In September of 2017, Gerry and I began telling stories and implementing follow-up activities to model how we use story to enhance curriculum.  As the  first year of the project  developed, teachers began to take on responsibility for planning activities and some of them began telling stories, themselves. This year, my teachers continue to take on more responsibility for planning and teaching storytelling-based lessons and, although I’m still telling in some classes, I’ve become mostly a resource for tales. One exception to this routine was the lessons I taught in December to Kathleen Dellanno’s 10^thgrade students. In these classes, I learned with the students. Here is the story.

In one of our early planning workshops this year, Kathleen told me that she had decided to add The Kite Runner, the novel by Khaled Hosseini, to all of her 10^th grade reading lists. She said that it had been summer reading for her Honors students and those students were so moved and excited by the book that she wanted to give all of her classes the opportunity to read it. “We’ll be able to find connections to storytelling,” she said. “Stories are an important part of the book.” I had not yet read The Kite Runner so, as soon as I got home that day, I downloaded it onto my Kindle and began a storytelling adventure. 

Most of The Kite Runner is set in Kabul, Afghanistan and tells the story of two boys: Amir, a wealthy Pashtun, and Hassan, his Hazara servant, who come of age at the time of the fall of the Afghan monarchy and the subsequent Soviet intervention. The boys’ relationship is complicated by many things, among which are class differences and their relationships with their fathers and father-figures. One of the pleasures of their young lives is sharing stories from the Shahnameh, “The Book of Kings”, an epic written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi in the 10^thcentury C.E. In the novel, the boys sit in the branches of a pomegranate tree where Amir reads stories  from the Shahnameh to the illiterate Hassan. Their favorite tale is that of Rostam and Sohrab, a tragedy in which a father unwittingly kills his son. 

When I finished reading The Kite Runner, my first idea for connecting it to oral story was to learn to tell “Rostam and Sohrab” so I began to read the Shahnameh. After sampling three translations, I chose to read the Penguin edition translated by Dick Davis. It is the most recent translation and Davis has rendered most of the text in prose narrative with sprinklings of verse. (The original is all rhymed couplets.) 

The story of Rostam begins about a quarter of the way through this massive tale, so I became engrossed in, what for me was, a completely new world of myth, legend, and history before I began reading the story I initially planned to tell. Almost from the beginning of my journey through the Shahnameh, I realized that, although the story of Rostam and Sohrab may be most central to Hosseini’s novel, other themes of the epic reverberate through the story of Amir and Hassan. Because the Shahnameh is about  the rise and fall of royal dynasties, there are many stories about fathers and sons, each with their own unique complications. Some of these reminded me of conflicts in The Kite Runner. For example, the hero Sam initially rejects his son, Zal, because he sees in him no similarity to himself. In the novel, Amir’s father, Baba, expresses the same thought when describing his feelings about Amir. There are also issues of class distinctions in the Shahnameh and, as in The Kite Runner, the upper-class characters often lack the nobility and moral strength displayed by their servants. 

It may be that the reason I was able to make these connections between the novel and the poem is because these themes are universal and, if I had followed my reading of The Kite Runner with a body of story from another culture, I would have found similar connections to the novel. In fact, the stories of the Persian kings and heroes share motifs with the stories of the Hebrew Bible, the epics of Homer, the Mahabharata, and other “big” stories from various cultures. 

One definite parallel between The Kite Runner and the Shahnameh, however, is the setting. Early on in our study of the novel, Kathleen said, “Hosseini has made Afghanistan a character in this book.” I think that’s true. The events in the novel make the reader feel the country’s suffering, as well as the suffering of the characters. Reading it allowed me to empathize with the people of modern-day Afghanistan in a way that news articles and, even, photographs had not. In a similar way, the Shahnameh is about the long history of struggle in the same region and reading it often gave me a feeling of déjà vu – the wars for territory, conflicts over differences of belief, struggles within families, blatant destruction of cities and monuments could be descriptions of current events. And, like the novel, the poem made all of these acts more real for me. 

But the Shahameh, like The Kite Runner, also paints a picture of an exquisitely beautiful place, - a land of gardens, fountains, and palaces – peopled with gorgeous characters, and containing wealth beyond comprehension. A truely brave world. 

Rhythm and Rhyme, Part II

by Maria LoBiondo

Thinking more about ways to engage the youngest listeners, I asked my good friend, preschool teacher and storyteller MaryAnn Paterniti, for her best advice. “Make it memorable,” she said.

I remember MaryAnn chanting with a group of preschoolers at the Storytelling Festival held at the County College of Morris as different youngsters “dressed” a felt board wolf with boots, pants, jacket, and more in a tale in which the children, rather than the Three Little Pigs, called for the wolf to come out and play. And she plays tricks like stamping leprechaun “footprints” in washable ink all over her classroom as a prelude to St. Patrick’s Day stories.

MaryAnn also brings her djembe on occasion so her preschoolers can pound and dance to some of her stories. I don’t play the djembe, but I do like to use a gourd shaker to initiate story times with a call and response chant I made up:

“Story! Story!/I have a story! I have a story!/You have a story! You have a story!/Let’s have a story! Let’s have a story!/Now! Now!”

If you are musically challenged like I am, consider simulating sounds for objects to add special effects that young listeners can repeat. For the story of The Tailor, we have great fun cutting the fabric with our scissors (kkuk, kkuk, kkuk), pushing the pieces under the sewing machine needle (whirr, whirr, whirr) as we pump the pedal with our feet, and finishing off the coat, jacket, vest, cap, and button, with a needle and thread (thwip, thwip, thwip).

At the Lititz Storytelling Festival, Charlotte Blake Alston used a simple shaker, as did teller Lyn Ford, to accent their stage performances. It’s a subtle but effective way to enhance or dramatize a dramatic moment.

While not appropriate for every story, I plan doing the same for stories in my repertoire where I can, adding a shaker sound for a hissing snake, clomping along a dusty road, or to make a cooking pot sizzle.

Mary Ann Paterniti (front left), Maria LoBiondo (front right) and the Princeton Storytelling Circle

Brainerd Residency 2017

by Luray Gross

It’s a rainy evening and I have not yet unpacked my suitcase after a four-day stint in the central Jersey town where I used to live.  I was there as the teller for a four-day storytelling residency at Brainerd Elementary School. Brainerd opted to have me see each of their sixteen kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd grade classes for one 45-minute introduction to storytelling.  This seemed to work out just fine.

In each session I told three or four tales, including at least one story in which the children participated through chanting, singing, and/or movement.  My hope was to activate not only their mental image-making facilities, but to create a situation in which they helped the story unfold with their participation.  I was quite pleased with the involvement of the students and touched by their wide-eyed attention and the many connections they made with other folktales and with their personal lives.

Luray telling to Brainerd Elementary School students

Near the end of a session with one of the second grade classes, a boy I’ll call Manny raised his hand to say, “I have a connection to that dress story.  It’s like my mother.”  The first story I had told his class was the Haitian tale, “Tipingee,” in which the main character is left with her stepmother after both her parents have died. As the story unfolds, Tipingee asks her friends to wear dresses the same color as hers and thus help her stay safe. In my telling of the story today, I found myself inserting an explanation for the selfishness of the stepmother who offers Tipingee as a servant to a man demanding payment for carrying a bundle of wood.  I said something like, “When Tipingee’s father married again, his new wife was kind and caring, but after he died, something in her heart cracked, and she became mean and selfish.”  A few other students had comments and questions about the stories, then Manny raised his hand again to quietly ask, “Do you want to hear about my mother?”

   “Would you like to tell us?” I asked.

   

Manny nodded and quietly explained that his mother’s parents both used “bad drugs,” and sometimes they didn’t even give her anything to eat, but her grandmother realized what was happening, took Manny’s mother to live with her and took care of her.  “And she grew up and met my dad and got married and they had me, and now she is happy,” Manny concluded.  All simply told.  All from a deep place.

This kind of happening is far from rare when age-old stories are brought to life in a classroom.  Children explode with energetic laughter over silly antics and grow thoughtful when the dilemmas of characters resonate with their own challenges. One of the most rewarding things for me is when this occurs for a teacher.  That too happened at Brainerd School.  In another second grade class I ended our session with the Native American story, “Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle.”  In the tale, the larger-than-life boy Gluscabi gets fed up with the wind and finds a way to trick the great bird, the source of that element.  He succeeds in stopping the wind, only to discover how much we need it.  Then he must reverse his actions to restore the great bird to its mountain top.  I tend to end this tale by saying, “And so it has been to this day:  sometimes the wind blows so hard we cannot stand against it, sometimes it is a gentle breeze, and sometimes there is not a breath of wind at all.”

Mrs. H, the teacher, was sitting behind her students for all of the stories, attentive and drawn in, but the wind story was different.  Her whole body was leaning into it, and when I finished, she was the one who raised her hand.  “That reminds me of something our pastor said in a sermon about the winds of adversity.  That’s what they can be.”   Without her having to say more, I understood that she knew what that adversity felt like and had found a way to stand up in its presence.  When we saw each other again in the faculty room, that bond of understanding remained.   For me, one of the deep rewards of this work.

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.

Teaching Aeschylus in 8th Grade

One my projects this fall has been a collaboration with 8^th grade social studies teacher, Darcel Deodato. Darcel is one of the teachers who participated in the long-term teacher education program that Julie Della Torre and I wrote about last spring. We are both back at the school, but this year we are each working intensively with only two teachers.

Eighth grade students in New Jersey study Civics. They learn about forms of government and, specifically, the organization of the United States government. When Darcel and I discussed how to embed storytelling into this curriculum, we decided to focus on stories that would help students think about why people need laws and how government serves society. Over the summer, I thought about a lot of stories: stories about justice being served, stories about the miscarriage of justice, and stories about people taking justice into their own hands. In the end, I decided to begin the year by telling the students the ancient Greek story of the trial of Orestes in Athens.

As I was preparing my lessons, I spent quite a bit of time trying to craft the myth into a tellable tale. This is always an issue when you’re working with a long and complex story, but with this particular story, I began my work with the goal of making it less graphically disturbing. The story of Orestes comes near the end of the Legend of the House of Atreus, a cursed family whose generations were blighted by murder, cannibalism, and incest. The horror begins when a first ancestor, Tantalus, cooks his son and serves him to the gods. It ends, five generations later, with Orestes in the court of Athens, on trial for matricide.

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon, the king who led the armies of Greece against Troy. The story of Agamemnon and his immediate family is beyond tragic. Not only was his sister-in-law, Helen, the cause of that bloody, drawn-out war, but he, himself, felt obligated to kill his oldest daughter, as a sacrifice to Artemis, before his armies even left Greece. While he was at war, his wife, Clytemnestra (Helen’s sister), took a lover (who was Agamemnon’s cousin) and plotted revenge for her daughter’s death. Upon his return from Troy, Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon and, in turn, their son, Orestes, killed her to avenge his father. 

The murders of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are the subject of a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus. In the last play, Orestes, haunted by his mother’s ghost and tormented by her Furies, the Erinyes, seeks the help of the goddess, Athena. When Orestes arrives in Athens, instead of passing judgment, herself, Athena asks the help of the citizens of Athens to end the cycle of blood-for-blood revenge. She creates a jury to decide the case of Erinyes vs. Orestes.

At first, I thought I would follow Aeschylus and cut the pre-Agamemnon generations out of my story, but as I worked, I realized how important the stories of the early ancestors are to one of the most significant results of Orestes’s trial: Athena’s persuasion of the Erinyes, chthonic goddess of retribution and guardians of family bonds, to remain in her city. I began to think that a listener needs to hear about the horrible crimes of Tantalus and his descendants to understand why society needs the presence of these goddesses and, while Aeschylus’s audiences would have known the family history, my audience would not. Ultimately, I decided to tell the story from the beginning. 

The unit took five class periods. The story worked in the social studies curriculum. Not only did it introduce the idea of a judicial system based on trial by a jury of peers, it was also relevant to the lives of the students who live in a city where neighborhoods are torn apart by retaliatory gang killings.  As the story unfolded, we stopped to allow time for students to discuss the moral issues involved. For example, students debated Agamemnon’s choices at Aulis. Should he kill his child so that the Greek Armada could sail to Troy? This discussion raised important questions: Is it ever justifiable to take a human life to further a cause or ideal? What about if taking one life might save others? We also talked about ‘laws’ that seem basic to our human instincts, like those against murder and incest. Students spoke passionately about these questions.

Near the end of the story, before I told the outcome of the trial,  Darcel divided the class into prosecution and defense teams who presented arguments for each side based on the story and our related discussions. During the debate, six students sat as jurors. The outcome of the 8^th grade trial differed from that of the original. The jury felt strongly that Orestes should be punished for his deed. The next day, students did a dramatic reading of the trial scene from Aeschylus’s play (We used Peter Meineck’s translation which is easy to read and lends itself to performance.) and discussed its outcome. Much of this discussion focused on Athena’s appeasement of the Erinyes and why it was important for her to persuade them to become guardians of the city.