Blog #5: Gateways to Students as Storytellers

Sarah Kay is an amazing poet. I’ve viewed several of her poems on YouTube but have never seen this TedTalk in our modules for this week. She spoke about not rushing stories and the 30/30 challenge, which is writing one poem for each day in the month of April for National Poetry month. She discovered that she was writing about the same thing each day. She uses a quote from French essayist and poet Paul Valéry: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned” (Kay, 2011, 6:01). This reminds me of the importance of revision and how it's so important to not only poetry, but to storytelling in general as well. Kay uses her hands, facial expressions, and gestures as she tells the story at the end. If you want more Sarah Kay, look for more of her videos on YouTube. “When Love Arrives” with Phil Kay (no relation!) is one of my favorites. (See the video of it below!) I appreciated seeing Sarah Kay in this week’s modules as a reminder of the storytelling power of poetry. It reminds me of the slam poetry and spoken word poems I hear around town sometimes. I believe that of all the storytelling genres, poetry like hers may be the most appealing to high school aged teenagers.

 





I really enjoyed reading “The Story is More Important Than the Words: A Portrait of a Reader-Focused Library Program” by Susan K. S. Grigsby. In the article, she writes about how she helps students find books on things they are interested in. She uses book talks, book trailers, and displays to help students become independent readers; however, on of the most important things she used was a student survey (2014). I like the example of the survey she provided; I am always looking for effective ways to gauge student interest when it comes to books and independent reading in my classroom. My first day with students is with them doing “Book Speed Dating,” a strategy I got from Penny Kittle and David Gallagher’s 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents. A hilarious and fun example of Book Speed Dating is in the video below. Grigsby also discovered that students could make reading logs using their student log in account. I am not sure if that is something we can do at my school, but I will ask my school librarian about it. I think it will be useful for students to have an electronic list to keep their “what to read next” lists.


 

 

International Storytelling 

Stories have the power to bring people together, and what other way to do that than having students share stories with cultures different than their own. The core of “Our Stories are Pretty Weird Too” allowed students to be the creators of their own stories/drawings. The study happened between students in Finland and students in Belgium. The age range of the students were between nine and twelve. Stories were shared through a translation along with the original language; students were then able to interact with the story by discussing the other culture’s story and creating a drawing about the story to share. The interactions between the classes also allowed students to add to each other’s stories, and students were able to notice the similarities between their cultures (Piipponen, & Karlsson, 2021). This study makes me wonder how this would look for older students and how it would be if the study was conducted across continents. For example, how would students in South Carolina do with students in China? Translators would likely need to be involved, and there would be an immense amount of planning before such a program could happen, but it would be useful and hopefully inspiring for students on both continents.

Storytelling exists in some form in every culture. The “How Do You Say Storytelling in Chinese” chapter of The Art of Storytelling is written by Judith Heineman who was on a storytelling delegation to China. In this chapter, she gives us a glimpse into how storytelling is used there. It was interesting to read that storytelling is more popular in the rural areas. Heineman shared that one family knows the story of their ancestors and are continuing to tell those stories for their family history (Heineman, 2010). This is one of the original purposes of storytelling. Personal narratives and legends about food are also popular. The legend/love story of the “Across the Bridge Noodles” I a sweet story of a wife who found a clever way to keep her husband’s lunch hot. Again, an overall theme was how much folklorists and storytellers around the world have in common: “We share the same passion to preserve our respective cultures’ stories and histories and desire to pass them on both informally and formal with well-trained presenters” (Heineman, 2010, p. 276).

Nonfiction & Young Adults

I don’t see much storytelling programming for teenagers and young adults. I’ve taught in two different high schools, and I haven’t seen any storytelling. However, I also know that school libraries reflect their librarian and what they value and prioritize. If I prioritize storytelling and make room for it in my library, then there will be storytelling in the library! One genre that students are interested in are true stories. Nonfiction is such a huge category; there are so many subgenres. For my nonfiction reading this week, I decided to focus on the personal essay/memoir, which often tells a story about the authors. “Mother Tongue is a personal essay about the author and her mother, whose first language is Chinese. “No Ordinary Joe” is creative nonfiction piece that is about the football player Joe Delaney, who drowned in the 1980s while trying to save three children. Stories that involve sports are appealing to the student-athletes who play sports. This another way to reel in students by appealing to their interests. 


 

The ScholasticAwards have writing categories, including memoir and personal essay. With my Creative Writing students, I always try to incorporate these stories so that students can see what other teens their age are writing. Of the ones I read from the 2022 writing contests, “#ActuallyAutistic” was my favorite. In this story, an autistic student writes about the perceptions others have about her autism, and how one of the positives of autism for her is echolalia, or the meaningless repetition of another’s words. The student has some beautiful language throughout which includes, “Elixir” sounds like a potion produced by pixie wings and ambrosia, all concocted by a wizard.” Students who are not autistic could gain insight from this story. Also, the language in the story will give students a chance to be exposed to new vocabulary words like diatribe, concocted, echolalia, and extemporaneous, among others. In my experience, students like to read stories by other young people as well, and The Scholastic Awards give students work that is not only by young people, but is also written in the last year. I think of storytelling to young adults as a gateway to their own stories.

 

Reading for this Week

Nonfiction Stories

  • “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan 
  • “No Ordinary Joe” by Rick Reilly  
  • “To Hell with Expectations” by Julie Song 
  • “Mama” by Whitney Veazey  
  • “#ActuallyAutistic” Selay Eser

 

References

Grigsby, S. (2014). The story is more important than the words: A portrait of a reader

focused library program. Knowledge Quest, 43(1), 22-28.

Heinman, J. (2010). How do you say “storytelling” in Chinese? In E. Greene, & J. Del

Negro (Eds), Storytelling: Art and technique (4th ed.). Libraries

Unlimited.

Piipponen, & Karlsson, L. (2021). “Our stories were pretty weird too” – Children as

creators of a shared narrative culture in an intercultural story and drawin

exchange. International Journal of Educational Research, 106, 101720

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101720

TedxTalk. (2011, May 24). Sarah Kay, Poetess/Storyteller [Video] YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iv2nZnZOrM

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