This month I’ve been working with the third graders at Paul Cuffee School in Providence on storytelling. Every student has had to find a story to tell, and is now in the process of learning it, with an eye towards telling it to a wider audience. It’s a process I’ve done a number of times, though not nearly as much as some other folks, like Beauty and the Beast (Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss) or Karen Chace.
One of the hardest things for any storyteller, regardless of age, is to take a story they’ve found on the printed page and make it their own. The translation from the written word back to oral is much more difficult than one might think. Children (and adults, too) can be pretty daunted, thinking they have to learn a story word for word. You can tell them, as I do, that they need not worry about particular words, but instead think of the scenes, work on the images, and tell their story in their own words. Still, there is that awkward memory of the words on the page, as if that is really the story. This is true for all art – making something your own, and not acting according to the schematic that is first presented – the work has to come from inside. As they say, the map is not the territory. But getting off the map is very difficult.
I developed an exercise last week that begins to address that process. The students had chosen the story, read it over a number of times, and made story maps of it – trying to identify each scene and drawing a picture that represented it. But they needed to tell it in their own words. Here’s what I did:
I had the students set up chairs in two circles, one inside the other – the chairs facing each other, so each kid had a partner. I then told them that the students on the inside had two minutes to tell their stories. More precisely, to just tell what happened. I timed them. When they finished, their partners on the outside told their stories. When the pair had finished, I had the people on the outside move one chair to their left, and we repeated the process. When those pairs had finished, I had the people on the inside move one chair to their left and repeat the process again. But this third time, I told them they were allowed to take three minutes to tell the story.
It worked pretty well. With the directions given, there was an eruption of protest. Kids said they couldn’t remember the whole story, or if they could, they couldn’t tell it in such a short time. “Too bad,” I said. “Just get through it”. They did. The second telling was easier. With the third telling, when I gave them an extra minute, they breathed a sigh of relief, and with my encouragement, slowed down to tell a little more. There was till some struggling, but after telling the story three times in fifteen minutes, the outline of the story was becoming clear in their minds. Because of the time limit, they had to throw away the written text and just get to the point. Now they had it fixed in their mind what happened in the story, and could begin to make it their own.
The exercise got me thinking about the challenge of being real in one’s art. It is hard to move from a concept of what the art is to the art itself, because in the end it has to come from inside of us if it’s going to be real. I was reminded of this when I went to see a play last weekend. It was pretty uninspiring, and my brother-in-law, Philip Stewart, who has done a lot of acting in his time, noted that the lead was not really acting, but indicating – the role wasn’t coming out of him, instead he was doing things that pointed towards what his character should be doing or feeling – like using shorthand. It’s like a kid who draws a picture of a tree where the trunk is brown and spread at the bottom, and the top is a round, scalloped ball of green – the schematic tree in the head, not a tree that actually exists. Or the writer that uses metaphors someone else has used before. Or the storyteller reciting a script they have memorized, rather than using their own language to impart the pictures in their head.
Making the students respond in a short amount of time, pulling the script away from them, leaves them to their own devices. They don’t have time to think, they just have to do – and it’s just doing that leads to authentic performance. When they have to use their own words, they begin to make the story their own. Then the story can grow.
Thank you for sharing this Bill.
This is gold. For me as a teacher. For me as an artist. Thank you.
Really really good and helpful, Bill, for teaching and for storytellers working with their own stuff. I love that “just DO it.”
Thanks.
Hi Bill, I really liked your exercise with the kids. I am going to use it in my residency. Thanks for sharing! Clare PS You and the band were great in Jonesboro. I was there for the first time this year and it felt good to have some Rhode Island favorites in Tennessee.
Sounds like some great kids you’re working with. They must have a great teacher.
Ha ha ha ha ha. True, though… see you tomorrow!
Hi Bill, that’s how I ran my multi generational workshop last summer and it worked as well with the 9 year old and the 90 year old. You have it explained really well here, so it can be a good model for other groups to try. How lucky for those kids and their teacher that they are spending this time with you discovering the magic of story! Have Fun!
Bill, It sounds like a/. you had a wonderful time and b/. the plan worked well. It is a great exercise. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hey Bill — I love this. It also reminds me to remember that great exercises and creative games are tools we can use our whole lives, that’ll hone adult work just the same way they’ll hone children work. Which reminds me of my father’s woodplane, which I still use.
Thank you so much for writing this, and tweeting it. I’m going to start using it today!
Thanks Deborah!
Thankyou Bill love your blogs – this one was great … I have been a long time trying to express what’s “inside” the time limit exercise may help. Thanks.
This is a great article! I’ve worked with story telling for a few years from an actor’s perspective and now I’m working with kids on storytelling, creative drama and creative writing. The hardest thing they face and that I face as their teaching artist is getting them to understand that the story is theirs to tell! It was hard learning that as a professional!
Once they understand that and learn small ways of making the stories their own, it is AMAZING to see them go!
I find it interesting that when a child has a 15 minute doctor visit or a routine dental visit, a parent will normally spend time carefully communicating, with great concern and interest, with the doctor.
And yet many of us fail to communicate, with the same interest and concern, with the person who spends 6-7 hours a day developing our child’s brain.
My children are grown now. Looking back I wish I would have communicated more with the educators who were partners in helping shape my children. Get the book, read it…then gift it to a teacher. Better yet, buy two.
If you have younger kids…you have teachers. This book is an easy, enjoyable read that gently opens the eyes of the reader to what they should be doing in an already serious relationship.