Sunday, April 19, 2015

A Whirlwind of Stories

Sunday is Visiting Day! We take a break from writing A to Z, and catch up on visiting other blogs. If you are looking for A to Z posts, scroll on down!
In the meantime, I am going to write about an awesome storytelling gig I had earlier this week.

After a long semester of snow days and schoolwork, I finally had the time and the opportunity to return to the local school that I adopted for storytelling practice purposes. They invited me in for Right to Read Week. I was scheduled to visit 7 classrooms on Thursday, and 2 on Friday - it was going to be a whirlwind of stories!
I unleashed a full semester's worth of pent-up storytelling energy. The kids didn't know what hit 'em. I broke in three new stories:
The King's Daughter who Lost her Hair (an Akamba folktale, about a princess who is mean to a magic bird and in return she goes bald; a hero has to go out and find a magic hair tree for her)
The Red Lion (a Persian folktale, about a prince who is terrified of lions, but no matter ow far he runs, he keeps encountering them, until he learns to face his fear)
The Sisimiqui (a Costa Rican folktale that features a rabbit riding an armadillo into battle) (yeah you read that right) (5th grade actually tagged this one "Assassin's Creed: Bunnyrabbit")
All three worked great. I did the princess one multiple times, and it was not only tremendous fun to tell, but it also managed to hold the kindergartners' rapt attention for almost twenty minutes!

I told a bunch of other things as well, such as Greek myths in 4th grade (Dionysus and the Pirates, and the fable of Momus - because they asked for my favorite), Journey to the West and some Nart sagas in 6th grade (I was really not planning on the former, but they were still talking about our trickster stories from last year, and before I knew it, I was asking them "have you ever heard about the Monkey King?..."), the adventures of St. Vincent de Paul (it's a Catholic school), and the meeting of Oisín and St. Patrick (to explain how tales get written down).
One of the things I loved the most was the questions kids asked. After every story they got to ask me anything they wanted to know, and most of them had great questions (if you ask me, the education system needs to encourage all students to ask as much as they can...). The first and second graders, for example, after hearing the tale of Oisín and Niamh and St. Patrick, had a slew of fun questions, such as "Who was Oisín's mother?" and "What was the name of his friends?" and "How could the horse run on water?" and "Where did the fairies go?" and "Are the Fianna the same as knights?" and even "Why did Oisín not die when he aged 300 years?" I was happy that I have a solid background knowledge in Fianna legends - answering their questions promptly and with real information delighted both them and me.

I was completely spent by the end of the day, but it was totally worth it.

12 comments:

  1. That sounds like an enormous amount of fun.... Sounds like something I should get into when I go back to an English-speaking country! I love telling stories! And I used to love hearing them! :)

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    1. There is a lot of storytelling happening in Seattle :) Let me know, I'll hook you up ;)

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  2. This really sounds like fun.
    And hey! Keeping such young children attentive for 20 minutes it's a epic fit, if you ask me! ;-)

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  3. Actually the schools do teach the kids to ask questions, otherwise you would not have gotten questions! Kids naturally want to tell instead of ask, so I applaud their teaching.
    It sounds like you really enjoyed telling stories! Kids are a great audience.

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  4. So jealous. We didn't have such awesomeness where I'm from when I was in school. Heck, I would sneak into a classroom to listen even now.

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  5. Really? You live in Seattle? I'm going to be there for a few days this August! Can we do lunch?

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    1. I don't live in Seattle :) But that's where Alex is moving, from what I can tell from her blog. :)

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    2. Oh. Too bad. Lucky kids, wherever you live!

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    3. Right now I live in Ohio :) And the kids are adorable.

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  6. That is so exciting! I love that you've shared these tales from other cultures with these five-year-olds. You've opened up a wonderful world for them.

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  7. Incredible that you have both the Fianna and Journey to the West in your back pocket to tell. You rock!

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  8. Oh, cool. That must have been so much fun for you and the kids. :)

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