I'm honored to be the Seattle Storytellers Guild's featured storyteller at their monthly series "Tales for a Thursday Evening". Here's the skinny:
My favorite stories are the ones that show you how to be an adult without letting go of the child within. Come hear about some of my journey to adulthood as I share some personal stories and some favorite tales to tell. I spent most of the past year working behind the scenes on publicity for the Guild, while writing my master's thesis on storytellers at the University of Washington, so I'm excited to step up on stage.
Free. Refreshments provided.
Thursday, June 10, 7:00pm
Haller Lake Community Club
12579 Densmore Ave N., Seattle, 98113
For more information:
www.seattlestorytelling.org
www.hallerlake.info
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Folklife Festival Storytelling
Come one, come all, and gather yourself around this fire
For I have some tales to spin
To frighten, to comfort, to excite, and to inspire...
For I have some tales to spin
To frighten, to comfort, to excite, and to inspire...
Four solid days of Folklife ... wow, that's a lot of activity. The Folklife Festival is a Memorial Day Weekend tradition in Seattle, and each year, it seems to get better. This was where I first came across the Seattle Storytellers Guild: at the Monday story swap, I believe it was. Who would have thought that two years later, I'd be featured in the Saturday night Ghost Stories Showcase ... their most attended event!
The two stories I prepared actually were not about ghosts, per se, so I started off with the classic tune of "Ghost Riders in the Sky", which everyone sang along with...
An old cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed cows he saw A-plowing through the ragged sky and up the cloudy draw Yippee-yi-yay! Yippee-yi-yo! Ghost riders in the sky!
Then I transitioned into "The one you don't see coming", a tale from West Africa that I learned from the very first storyteller I ever met, a guy named Ralph...
There is a village deep in the jungles of West Africa
where the old warriors gather at night around the campfire
and tell stories about The One You Don't See Coming.
A fickle and cunning prey it is,
for not only can you not see it coming,
you cannot smell it
you cannot hear it!
Indeed, you cannot catch The One You Don't See Coming,
because it always catches you first!
where the old warriors gather at night around the campfire
and tell stories about The One You Don't See Coming.
A fickle and cunning prey it is,
for not only can you not see it coming,
you cannot smell it
you cannot hear it!
Indeed, you cannot catch The One You Don't See Coming,
because it always catches you first!
Finally, I closed it out with "The Uwabami", a Japanese story from Cathy Spagnoli's collection of Asian Trickster Tales. The uwabami is an evil trickster python that gets tricked, himself, by a small schoolboy on his way home to nurse his mother back to health ...
Kusaku had to think quickly.
"How do you know I am a human? I could be like you
- a trickster -
in human form.
Indeed, I am the great trickster Fox!"
It was a fabulous evening, and I enjoyed hearing the other tellers of the showcase: the Baltuck-Garrard Family Tellers, Anne Rutherford, and Robert Rubinstein. No wonder folks keep coming back to this event."How do you know I am a human? I could be like you
- a trickster -
in human form.
Indeed, I am the great trickster Fox!"
Thanks to Christen for the photos!
(I always forget to ask someone to take some)
(I always forget to ask someone to take some)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Crayons make crayons
While going through my collection of craft ideas, I came across the idea of melting used crayons down in a muffin tin and then letting them harden into new crayons. I thought: What a great way to use what we already have in the classroom and jazz it up into something "new". (I'm all about how minimalist true joy can be ...)
So, here's what it looked like:
Sorting out paperless crayons into color groups
(Don't worry, I have more plans for those crayon wrappers...)
Hammering down each set of crayons into little pieces
Combining crayon bits in different color combinations
So, here's what it looked like:
Sorting out paperless crayons into color groups
(Don't worry, I have more plans for those crayon wrappers...)
Hammering down each set of crayons into little pieces
Combining crayon bits in different color combinations
Warming the crayons to melting point in our toaster oven ... pretty gooey!
As I held each child to see the process, I asked them what they saw happening. "It's melting!" they said. "Melting? What's that?!" I asked. They have, as yet, been hard pressed to explain what melting means, except for one, who said, "It's like the crayons start to flow over each other."
Once cooled, unwrapping our new crayons
And ... COLOR!!
As I held each child to see the process, I asked them what they saw happening. "It's melting!" they said. "Melting? What's that?!" I asked. They have, as yet, been hard pressed to explain what melting means, except for one, who said, "It's like the crayons start to flow over each other."
Once cooled, unwrapping our new crayons
And ... COLOR!!
This activity has been a huge hit, though I've noticed you need to do it with just four or five kids at a time. Otherwise, everyone is waiting a looooong time for their turn to hammer and pick out their crayon colors. Plus, with some potential hazards (hammer and toaster oven), too many kids means too many opportunities to be distracted, and that is never a risk I'm willing to take. Four kids worked really well, and now, every day, a new set of preschoolers make something new out of something old and get all excited all over again ...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Transportation week
Sometimes I get worried that, no matter how hard I try, I'm never giving my students enough of a chance to be as creative as they most possibly can. ... Until I watch them work, of course, and I realize that "creative" is their default setting. Even when given a pattern to build a picture from, the ideas that go into their personal creations take them their own way.
David: I made my bus pink and orange. It's going into town. [Starts walking around the classroom, pretending his bus is driving.] Uh oh! Now he's getting a ticket!
Kevin: Look, it's going uphill. It's a roto-tiller that cuts grass.
I left school after this activity and thought again about my increasing interest in emergent curriculum. It seems that, even when presented with what could be seen as a prescribed craft, children infuse their work with their own background knowledge and creativity. That is so re-assuring. And, it makes me wonder if it's a lesson for all of us in the diversity of learning experiences that are inherent in each "lesson" we try to teach, each "activity" we facilitate.
Of course, we can create and facilitate activities for kids with an objective in mind, e.g. they're supposed to make a bus out of construction paper pieces. For three-year-olds, it's a worthy task, especially when we've been reading books about buses and talking about transportation all this week. It's good for us teachers to know they've made the transfer of knowledge and can create the image of a bus on their own.
At the same time, though, when we hold too closely to our objectives, what do we - the teachers - learn from the children, other than that they can create a bus or not? I introduced the activity by showing an example of a bus I had made, so we could talk about the parts of a bus. But then, when the kids went to work, I stepped back and observed more than I spoke, to see where they went with their idea of what a bus is.
As the examples above show, each child both approached and left the activity having made different meanings of it, and having scaffolded their image of a bus into a different set of prior knowledge, experiences and interests. David changed the color of his bus from yellow to pink and orange, and gave it motion by walking around the room with it in his hands. Then, he made a story out of it by pretending it was going to get a ticket. Roughly speaking, I could see that he was applying his prior knowledge of the fact that if vehicles like buses drive too fast, they get a ticket. I can't tell whether he's experienced that first-hand, or if he's observed it while driving with his parents, but I can tell he's had some experience with that concept.
Kevin, I know, is really into plants and gardens and the tools that go with it. I'm not at all surprised that he imagines his bus like a rototiller, let alone that he even knows what a rototiller is. He was trying to fit the idea of a bus into his general interest in gardening, and the closest thing that a bus resembles within the context of garden is, of course, a rototiller. What intrigued me more, though, was the fact that he turned it on its side, and tried to put the second wheel on the opposite side of the first wheel, rather than next to it, as if he was trying to make it three-dimensional. THAT was fascinating.
Finally, Tully, if you haven't guessed already, has been sucked into the paper airplane craze that started our transportation unit. Anything she makes with paper, she eventually starts to fold into a paper airplane, no matter what it is, or is supposed to be. I'm not worried. By the time next Monday comes around, the craze will be past. For now, I'm celebrating with her.
David: I made my bus pink and orange. It's going into town. [Starts walking around the classroom, pretending his bus is driving.] Uh oh! Now he's getting a ticket!
Kevin: Look, it's going uphill. It's a roto-tiller that cuts grass.
Of course, we can create and facilitate activities for kids with an objective in mind, e.g. they're supposed to make a bus out of construction paper pieces. For three-year-olds, it's a worthy task, especially when we've been reading books about buses and talking about transportation all this week. It's good for us teachers to know they've made the transfer of knowledge and can create the image of a bus on their own.
At the same time, though, when we hold too closely to our objectives, what do we - the teachers - learn from the children, other than that they can create a bus or not? I introduced the activity by showing an example of a bus I had made, so we could talk about the parts of a bus. But then, when the kids went to work, I stepped back and observed more than I spoke, to see where they went with their idea of what a bus is.
As the examples above show, each child both approached and left the activity having made different meanings of it, and having scaffolded their image of a bus into a different set of prior knowledge, experiences and interests. David changed the color of his bus from yellow to pink and orange, and gave it motion by walking around the room with it in his hands. Then, he made a story out of it by pretending it was going to get a ticket. Roughly speaking, I could see that he was applying his prior knowledge of the fact that if vehicles like buses drive too fast, they get a ticket. I can't tell whether he's experienced that first-hand, or if he's observed it while driving with his parents, but I can tell he's had some experience with that concept.
Kevin, I know, is really into plants and gardens and the tools that go with it. I'm not at all surprised that he imagines his bus like a rototiller, let alone that he even knows what a rototiller is. He was trying to fit the idea of a bus into his general interest in gardening, and the closest thing that a bus resembles within the context of garden is, of course, a rototiller. What intrigued me more, though, was the fact that he turned it on its side, and tried to put the second wheel on the opposite side of the first wheel, rather than next to it, as if he was trying to make it three-dimensional. THAT was fascinating.
Finally, Tully, if you haven't guessed already, has been sucked into the paper airplane craze that started our transportation unit. Anything she makes with paper, she eventually starts to fold into a paper airplane, no matter what it is, or is supposed to be. I'm not worried. By the time next Monday comes around, the craze will be past. For now, I'm celebrating with her.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Stories on the spot ...
The following anecdotes are notes I've taken the past few weeks as I've observed my preschoolers at play. With all the literature I'm still reading on how the brain naturally creates stories to explain things, I thought I'd see what examples I could find in real life. It didn't take long ...
David pulls Thomas the Train out of the train bucket and starts driving it on the wooden train tracks.
"Here's little Thomas. Number 1!"
Thomas is clearly too small for the tracks. Suddenly, David flies him off the tracks onto a blue section of the train table.
"Now he's swimming in the pool!"
(David observed a change in his play environment, and changed the action of his toy to fit that change logically.)
Two boys are in a tent. It's unclear whether they mean to exclude Charlie or not. Charlie looks around and picks up two cardboard building blocks, lifts them up over his head, and starts to hit them against the top of the tent.
"It's a stunder storm!" he cries.
The two boys come out of the tent with dinosaur toys.
"We must fight the storm!" and they and Charlie fight by flying their respective toys around in the air. No one is actually hit. The two boys recede again to the tent. Charlie remains outside.
"Drip, drop, drippety drop! It's gonna rain ..."
(Charlie created a purpose for his toys that allowed him to interact with the other children. They responded as David did, adjusting their play to a real change in their environment, so that the new element fit into the story of their previous play.)
Laura is using a dolphin stamp to decorate a piece of paper. She stamps two dolphins so they overlap each other.
"Look!" she says, "Two dolphins ran into each other!"
(She noticed something different, a break in her previous pattern, and then made up an imaginary story to explain how it happened.)
"Wow," I say, "That's interesting. How do you think that happened?"
"They were just swimming along," she starts, "and weren't watching where they were going! That's what happened in my movie at home 'The Day of the Fliers'."
(She extrapolated on the story by applying previous knowledge of / experience with another story to her reasoning in this story. If two dolphins run into each other, she can assume that it happened for similar reasons as she saw elsewhere.)
She continues to stamp the dolphins so they overlap with each other.
Now, I'll fully admit that my brain is full of stories, story-making, and storytelling thoughts these days, so that I, too, am engaging my brain's natural story-making activity to make sense of what observe. However, I hope you begin to see how just about everything a child says in play, every reaction they have to their environment, is an act of this story- and sense-making process. I am privileged to observe this activity every day I am in my preschool. They remind me that it is a process that continues into adulthood. Though, sadly, with as much valuable experience as we gain, our imaginative capacities for believing that a train can swim in a swimming pool or that dinosaurs can fight a "stunder storm" drastically decrease.
David pulls Thomas the Train out of the train bucket and starts driving it on the wooden train tracks.
"Here's little Thomas. Number 1!"
Thomas is clearly too small for the tracks. Suddenly, David flies him off the tracks onto a blue section of the train table.
"Now he's swimming in the pool!"
(David observed a change in his play environment, and changed the action of his toy to fit that change logically.)
Two boys are in a tent. It's unclear whether they mean to exclude Charlie or not. Charlie looks around and picks up two cardboard building blocks, lifts them up over his head, and starts to hit them against the top of the tent.
"It's a stunder storm!" he cries.
The two boys come out of the tent with dinosaur toys.
"We must fight the storm!" and they and Charlie fight by flying their respective toys around in the air. No one is actually hit. The two boys recede again to the tent. Charlie remains outside.
"Drip, drop, drippety drop! It's gonna rain ..."
(Charlie created a purpose for his toys that allowed him to interact with the other children. They responded as David did, adjusting their play to a real change in their environment, so that the new element fit into the story of their previous play.)
Laura is using a dolphin stamp to decorate a piece of paper. She stamps two dolphins so they overlap each other.
"Look!" she says, "Two dolphins ran into each other!"
(She noticed something different, a break in her previous pattern, and then made up an imaginary story to explain how it happened.)
"Wow," I say, "That's interesting. How do you think that happened?"
"They were just swimming along," she starts, "and weren't watching where they were going! That's what happened in my movie at home 'The Day of the Fliers'."
(She extrapolated on the story by applying previous knowledge of / experience with another story to her reasoning in this story. If two dolphins run into each other, she can assume that it happened for similar reasons as she saw elsewhere.)
She continues to stamp the dolphins so they overlap with each other.
Now, I'll fully admit that my brain is full of stories, story-making, and storytelling thoughts these days, so that I, too, am engaging my brain's natural story-making activity to make sense of what observe. However, I hope you begin to see how just about everything a child says in play, every reaction they have to their environment, is an act of this story- and sense-making process. I am privileged to observe this activity every day I am in my preschool. They remind me that it is a process that continues into adulthood. Though, sadly, with as much valuable experience as we gain, our imaginative capacities for believing that a train can swim in a swimming pool or that dinosaurs can fight a "stunder storm" drastically decrease.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
KSER Membership Drive
Oh, let's hope I remember everyone's name!
Welcome to the KSER 90.7FM membership drive, where Global Griot - the Sunday morning storytelling show - hosted a party of all live storytelling this morning. What a fabulous experience to take part in, and what wonderful connections we all made with each other!
We were all appreciative of Global Griot's hosts Aarene, Jim, and Mary, and to the station manager, Bruce, who were so welcoming, with kind words, nourishing treats (ever heard of Cackleberry Casserole?), and hot coffee. There was a lot of talk regarding future collaborations between the Seattle Storytellers Guild and KSER, which I hope will come to fruition soon.
There were so many stories told, from Fern's Irish tale of The Grain of Fionn mac Cumhaill (also known as Finn MacCool), to a Jack tale from Kathy; from Naomi's The Jazzy Bears (take-off on Goldilocks) to Eva's mysterious "Suspect". I was glad that both Rob and I told personal stories, too, because people forget so easily that crafting a story from your own life is just as much the challenge and delight as is developing folktales or other kinds of stories. There are so very many kinds of stories to tell, and it was wonderful to see them all represented by the different tellers present.
I was most inspired by the sense of community that was instantly created in that volunteer room, just outside the on-air booth. Bruce didn't really know what he was in for when he welcomed us and asked us, "What stories will you be reading?" "Um," we answered, hesitantly, "We don't read stories, we tell them. That's why we're called storytellers." Sure enough, after the first few of us had told, he piped up: "Oh, you know, I tell stories, too, about my daughters..." and next thing you knew, he was on the air, telling stories, himself. Ah yes, homo narrans, we are all storytellers ...
A peek into the studio from the volunteer room. Bruce, at the mic, is the station manager, and Maggie, in the green, is an Irish harpist and storyteller who opened up the show for us, but had to leave before the group photo was taken.
About half way through the show I answered a call in the volunteer room (we were also taking pledges, by the way) from a young boy whose first words to me were: "Could you tell the three bears one?" - "You mean, Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" - "Yeah, that one." I later spoke to his grandmother, who said he comes over every Saturday night to stay the night get up Sunday to listen to Global Griot. ... !!! ... So, I asked around, "Who wants to tell Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" - "Someone will!" I was reassured, which I passed on to the boy before we hung up.
Well, then we were all a little stuck. How does that story start, anyway? There are three bears, they leave the house, but why? And then there's Goldilocks, prancing through the forest, but what is she doing? Piece by piece we put it all together and within 10 minutes, Kathy and Naomi were in the studio telling two different versions of the classic story.
Ah, the sweet sense of community! What very different journeys we all had taken to that little building in Everett WA; yet, how warm and welcoming all were toward one another, as if we'd known each other all our lives. Who knows? Maybe we have ... in a storyteller kind of way.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Dear Charlie ...
Dear Charlie,
You amazed me today. Let me tell you the whole story.
We've been learning about all the German fairy tales this month, and today we spent a lot of time talking about Dornröschen, or Sleeping Beauty. After listening to the story at reading time, all you children went to the tables to decorate a picture of Sleeping Beauty's castle and cover it with the great bush of thorns that grew around it while she was sleeping.
Now, stories are stories, and everyone remembers them differently. One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is watch to see what my students take from the stories they hear, and how that comes out in their art work. Here's what you drew and glued on, and what you told me about it:
"There's the princess [black figure, above] trying to get the prince down. She needs a rope to get one [draws purple line down from black figure]. Here's the water all around. There are two flying pigs to guard the castle [drawn left of castle]. There's a key inside here [purple mark on rose in the castle entryway].
About green bush on the right (the great thorns that grew around Sleeping Beauty's castle):"That's the decoration. When you put strings on it, it looks all pretty. The decoration looks good."
Charlie, what a clear imagination you have! As you were telling me all about your drawing, you knew exactly what everything was, and when you wanted to tell me about something that was missing, you started drawing it as you told me about it.
I really enjoyed hearing what you added to the story, like I do hearing about everything you draw and think about. You have such an active mind, full of detail. Most kids do, and that's why I love taking the time to listen to you tell me about your pictures.
Thank you, Charlie. Hope you had a good time at school today, too.
"So, here's a sandbox [orange circle, bottom]. That's the Sonne [sun] and the Sonne dries up all the puddles. There's a frog [brown, lower left]. There's the chocolate stream and they put it in the wrapper. There are the muddy puddles in a drain that drains a lot of stuff. The Sonne is really hot - so hot, you have to eat ice cream." - Charlie, 4yr 2mo
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