At least there’s lots of energy in the high winds and stormy seas that have been hitting these shores. I hope they bring you no harm but, instead, blow away any cobwebs from last year and open up fruitful new paths for 2014.
Monsters make an excellent theme for developing children’s creativity. Monsters appeal to young people – there’s something essentially subversive in both.
So whether you’re a parent, teacher or children’s club leader – and whatever the age of the children you work with – you can get a lot out of monsters.
• Find one or two good monster stories – for instance the Greek story of Typhon with older children
• Prepare the stories for telling, then tell them to your children, be they in class, at home or in some kind of children’s club
• Allow time for the children to come up with comments and questions (in class or clubs, working in pairs or groups is best)
• Ask the children to suggest some modern-day monsters – you might be impressed by their ideas – and make a list of the monsters
• Invite them to draw, paint or make models of the monsters they’ve thought of (this gives them useful thinking time)
• Give them the time to make up a story about their particular monster (working in groups is best in a class)
• Get them to tell their story (each group can tell in turn to the others)
This whole enterprise could take a full morning or evening session or be spread out over several sessions. (more…)
A Memory Walk is a fantastic thing to do with children. This week I was reminded of its potential while thinking about Dylan Thomas whose work is to be celebrated this coming Saturday, October 5th, in the evening entertainments at the London Welsh Literature Festival that follow my performance of my storytelling piece, Travels With My Welsh Aunt.
Dylan Thomas lived in Carmarthenshire in the village of Laugharne. Back in 2001, I was asked to join with Welsh artist Catrin Webster to run The Boathouse Project. This was to be a week-long project to explore Dylan Thomas, his work and the place where he lived, with Top Juniors and Year 7s from Carmarthenshire schools. Catrin would work with them through the medium of art. I would work with them through storytelling.
The Memory Walk I used with the groups of children attendeding was one of the best techniques I’ve ever invented to prime children’s language and their storytelling. With each new group at the beginning of each day session, I began by talking a bit about storytelling, telling a couple of stories and introducing some of Dylan Thomas’ characters and story ideas. A lot of people liked the thought of Captain Cat in Under Milk Wood, also the grandfather in A Visit to Grandpa’s who imagines every night that he’s driving a cart and horses when actually he’s sitting in bed. The idea of a boathouse proved inspiring too and so did the Voices of the Drowned that also figure in Under Milk Wood. Whose voices could they be today? And when might we hear them? (more…)
Contrast and connection are this week’s themes. On Wednesday when my husband Paul returned from his trip to Australia to go to his godson’s wedding, the huge contrast in temperature – 29 degrees down to 2 – was just one aspect of what we talked about. Looking at his photos – sunny beaches, a kangaroo with baby in pouch, the vegetation – I felt highly aware of the massive contrasts he’d experienced in culture, landscape and general style of life.
One detail that particularly struck me was his description of the feel on his hand of the delicate claws of a kangaroo mother.
Then, Wednesday evening, I had my own extraordinary experience of touch. In a workshop at the Interfaith Centre in Queens Park, the participants were asked to spend ten minutes talking in pairs (five minutes each) about how we are involved in narrative work. A crucial factor about the results for us all was that, as requested, we’d each spoken to each other with eyes closed, hands touching. It made us all highly aware of the essence of the other.
Connection! That Wednesday evening experience was part of the second Forum event arranged by St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. Since conflict resolution is the very specialised field of work of a number of those who were present, I sometimes felt conscious of the comparative ordinariness of my 30-years of work as a professional storyteller working in schools and with groups of adults. Yet the very next day, back at Kensington Palace for Session 4 of my parents course in how to tell stories, I felt once again conscious of the extraordinariness of it – how, because of the people, it is full of meaning and value. And also, always, a sense of potential.
Here are some of the things I experienced on Thursday.
1. During a synchronised retelling of one of the stories I’ve taught to the group (Mrs Wiggle and Mrs Waggle), I became extremely aware of the big, beautiful eyes of a tiny toddler who had been brought along by his mother. My voice, my face, the story, the atmosphere? Whatever it was that engaged him so much, the little toddler was gripped. He sat looking up at me with such attention, it felt entirely obvious that he knew what was going on, and that in some way it was entirely for him. Connection!
2. With another bigger boy – a four-year old also there with his mother – I saw at once from the way he joined in, though often looking at her not at me, that the story was already familiar to him. So I knew his mother must have told it to him. I was delighted. It’s one of the aims of the course – to get parents telling stories to their own and other children. Connection!
3. During a break in the session, one of the Arabic-speaking mothers showed me a lovely jewellery box she’d brought in from home. She also showed me part of the story her 8-year old daughter had created and written about it. I got the sense that this story was something very new for the girl: her teacher in school had evidently been very impressed by what she’d done. For my part, I was impressed by the mother. Last week, we’d used the magic of objects as an inspiration for making new stories. She’d clearly passed on the magic and in so doing had engendered another example of the potency for change that can arise through story. Connection! (more…)
Dear Blog Readers
This week I was surprised and delighted to learn that I have been nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award. I wonder if you’d help me?
The awards are being run by BASE (British Awards for Storytelling Excellence) and this is the first year they are being given. The administrators are storytellers Peter Chand and Shonaleigh and the BASE website will be going up on the Internet on August 12th.
Meantime, further nominations are being collected. The more I receive, the more likely I am to be shortlisted. Would you be willing to help build up my nominations?
For me, getting this award would be a recognition of all the kinds of storytelling I most believe in – the ordinary (and always extraordinary!) sessions and courses with schools, community groups, teachers, parents etc. etc. etc. This kind of work is rarely in the limelight but especially in these times of funding cuts, it’s even less likely to receive public support and recognition.
There are many other things I’m proud to have done including the Drill Hall Workshops, Time for Telling, By Word of Mouth, Travels With My Welsh Aunt, Storytelling Cookbook, Lifting the Sky, SfS Publications, Shemi’s Tall Tales, festivals and performances galore and this Storytelling Starters Blog.
But it’s for all the day-to-day and routine stuff – and in heartfelt thanks to all the people I’ve worked with over the years – that I’ve agreed to allow my name to go forward.
To nominate me, please email awardstory@gmail.com and request a nomination form. On the first page, when you receive it, click on Lifetime Achievement Award (about half-way down). On the second page, say very briefly why you’d like me to get it (no more than 150 words). Then please return the form to awardstory@gmail.com
My very great thanks for all help received. And by the way, if and when I get shortlisted, I’ll be coming back to ask you to vote for me too!
Mary
As the sun sets on 2011, I’m thinking hard about my Storytelling blogs for 2012.
I’ll be starting them again next Saturday. But I’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to see them cover.
So do me a huge favour and let me know what topics you’d like to see and any questions you’d like to ask. I’d really like to make the blog as responsive as possible. I’d love to know if it’s useful to anyone out there – and in what way – and what you’d like to see considered.
Please take a minute or two to send me an email – you’ll find the address at the end of my website. Or you could put your message in the Comment box at the end of this blog.
Meantime, all my best wishes for the New Year. I hope it begins really well for you and proves fulfilling as it goes on.
My new Storytelling Starters blog begins this Saturday, 1 October.
Please come back and have a look then – and, of course, make a comment or two.
(more…)
Michael Morpurgo’s moving piece about Norway on Radio 4 Today (26.07.11) eloquently spells out why ancient folktales like Beowulf are still so important – for us all. They delineate the fight against evil that is always to be fought. The monster Grendel still stalks our earth. We need hope, love and courage to overcome it. (more…)
