A little more on writing

Last week I was in Salina, KS for three days in the schools. On Thursday, I had four sessions. The first was with three fifth-grade classes (9-10 year olds). Then I went into each class separately to do a workshop on storytelling and writing, as I described a few posts ago. I remembered to take my camera. Here are a few pictures of the students writing about candy. That's the topic I almost always start with. 

While they write, the students are usually absolutely focused. If they get stuck, I remind them to keep writing. I may give a quiet prompt, "What's the worst candy you ever had?" or "Don't forget about candy at Halloween or Easter or Christmas."

Though this was only a three minute piece, they were able to get quite a lot down on paper.

Some of the kids read aloud afterwards. If we'd had more time, we would have been able to hear more of the writings.

One girl wrote a piece that personified the candy, moving past the first stage writings which are often like this: "I like candy. Candy is awesome. My favorite candy is...." It's not a bad stage, but I'm always interested to hear what happens when they move through it to something juicy.

My only regret in these workshops is that we could have used another hour or two. I like to give two topics at a time: "Write about armadillos and/or roller coasters." We expand to five- and ten-minute writings. With more time, we also have more time for other writing games. Even with this short amount of time (50 minutes for the storytelling session, 50 minutes for the workshop), the kids were jazzed about writing and would have happily have spent much more time exploring with pencil and paper.

Storytelling, storywriting

In my last post, so very long ago, I promised to write about the residency I did with 8th graders in Scott City. I'd rather write about the program I offer called "Storytelling, storywriting." I know I've written about this before, so this is mostly a reminder.

Sometimes other storytellers ask me how I can give workshop plans away like this. I remember what Eric Booth says in The Music Teaching Artist's Bible: 80% of what you teach is who you are. If somebody takes my workshop outline and puts it into practice, it will be completely different from what I do. Maybe better!

Stuff I use, sometimes, for "Storytelling, storywriting"

Back to the workshop. This is an adaptable program. I can do a 45-minute version, a 90-minute version, a  two-hour in one fell swoop version, or a multiple day version. It works best with grade 4 (age 9) and up, with kids who can read out loud fluently. I've done it in Mexico with kids from all over the country who study at English schools, in Salina, KS with fourth and fifth graders, at a Juvenile Detention Center.

In the best case scenario, I have a whole session of storytelling before we even get to the writing. That's what will happen next week in Salina when I work with fifth graders. I'll tell mostly stories I wrote, pointing out story structure and the way descriptions in the stories evoke the senses. We'll have time for questions about stories and storytelling. The kids usually feel comfortable with me by the end of the session. That's intentional. I need to connect with them for this to work.

In the second session, I read a story out loud. I like "The Big Stone," which can be found in The Guizer by Alan Garner. It's written in a slightly archaic style, and though I read with expression, the students glaze over. Then I tell it the way it is on my CD The ghost with the one black eye, to demonstrate the difference between a written and a told story.

I ask what they notice, reminding them that there is no way they can be wrong in what they say. We talk about the use of gestures, facial expressions, the voice and the body. We might do an exercise or two to underline this.

Then, using a different story, we work on backstory. I want them to understand that in order to tell a story well, I have to see it fully. I must be able to answer any question they might ask me about any character, setting, or bit of action in the story, spoken or unspoken. The color of the big sister's shoelaces in The ghost with the one black eye? Pink, absolutely. Is there a pet in that story? Yes, a big dog. (Note: if I get in a rut with a story, sometimes I change the picture in my head)

Then what? We move on to writing. I use an abridged version of Natalie Goldberg's list of rules for writing practice from her fabulous book Wild Mind. I insist that the kids write them down so these rules will go in their pencil hands to their brains. Then, using the rules, we write for three minutes on a topic I give them. As they write, the room is absolutely silent. Occasionally I prod them with a reminder to keep their hands moving, or I give a slight suggestion if they think they're really stuck. After the timer goes off, we read a few aloud.

Then we play a game I adapted from Gianni Rodari. It's like "Heads, Bodies and Legs," which I've just learned is also called "Le cadavre exquis," or "Exquisite corpse," but with writing. Here's how I described it in a post in 2008:

 It's a game where we write a story line by line, folding the page backwards after each line and then passing that paper to the next person. I prompt the kids for each line: "Who was it?", "Where was he/she?", "What did he/she do?" and so on until the story is done. After each line, the paper is passed to the next kid. They're not supposed to look at the previous lines, so when the paper is unfolded, it's a completely ridiculous story. Some of them make a strange kind of sense.

It's a great game to teach story structure. I also point out this even simpler story structure:

Somebody wanted...
But...
So...

If there's time, we extend the timed writings or the game, or we can add another game, either a storytelling game or a writing game. Even as I'm going out the door, the students often are asking if they can do this some more. They're having a blast writing and storytelling!

Did I ever mention how much I love what I do?

Residency reflections

I'm home, after spending most of four weeks in Allen County, KS, telling stories in every elementary school class in the county (three towns: Iola, Moran and Humboldt). I did 56 sessions in all, shaping each performance to the grade and attention span of the kids, as always.

I had up to four sessions a day, then most often went back to my hotel for a nap. When I'm doing a residency like this, after work I sleep, read, do office work on my laptop, answer phone calls, explore the town, even watch a little tv. By the end of the residency, I'm famous--just going for a walk, I run into kids who says "You're the storyteller! I told my mom that story, the one about the baby!" This happens in the restaurants and stores, too. I never mind this. Whenever possible, I stop and talk with them. I had a great conversation with a fourth-grader in the grocery store in the second week. She waved me over to show me to her mother and father, and to tell me that her mother knew the Mexican story I'd told. She translated for her mother as we talked about different versions of La Llorona.

The whole point of storytelling is to connect, and this is part of it. I know that in a few years they might have forgotten me, but they'll remember the stories. That's what is most important. 

Iola Residency, 2012

I'm back in Iola, KS this month, doing another performance residency for most of September. This is thanks to the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. 

I don't think I've given enough credit to the Bowlus in the past. This is an excellent arts center in rural Allen County. The Bowlus presents all kinds of performances--music, theater, arts--from regional and national companies throughout the year. The Bowlus is also well known for the annual Buster Keaton Celebration, coming up on Sept. 24 and 25. The Center hosts the school district art, drama, speech, forensics and music programs. It's one of the reasons I have hope for the arts in Kansas. 

The benefactor, Thomas H. Bowlus, is quoted on the front of the building:

Yes.

This residency in Iola was contingent upon funding from the Kansas Arts Commission, which of course did not come through (see my previous post), but the Bowlus is committed to the arts in this community, so they honored the contract. They have had a storyteller in the schools every year for many years. Last time I was here was in 2007.

As I've written before, residencies come in different forms. In some residencies, I visit the same classes multiple times. Some are workshops instead of performances, like the Deep Roots, Strong Kids Family Story Residency. This one is a performance residency, one in which I visit every elementary school classroom in the district (three towns) once, tailoring each session to the age and grade of the kids. It's a treat for me to visit classrooms instead of doing assemblies. 

More on residency reflections next. 

More on bats

Yesterday and the day before I had my first sessions of the residency "Learning about the environment through the arts," through the school district and the Lied Center of Kansas. I wrote about the preparation for the residency a few weeks ago.

The marionettes I was making didn't quite pan out. The Model Magic bat wasn't quite flexible enough. I found a bat marionette online and ordered it. The "Boingy Bat" arrived on Thursday, about an hour before my first session. It's fun, but more of a chachka than an actual usable marionette. Still, in a pinch it works to explain about marionettes in the context of other puppets.

Here are the other bats I've been using. The little black finger puppet is great for showing the bat's structure--those looong fingers that make up the ribs on the wings are very cool!

Prince (formerly known as Frog), Trixie and the Baby are all part of these sessions. One point I've been making is that puppets have distinct characters and voices. I illustrate this by switching the voices around, for example giving the Baby Trixie's voice. Weird!

Before I bring the baby out, I tell the kids I'm going to show them the biggest predator of bats. Then I bring the baby out. What? A baby?! I explain that of course not when she's a baby, but that human beings destroy bat habitat (say that five times fast), and other habitats as well.

I'll meet with these six groups again after they've visited the Baker Wetlands. They already know and understand a lot about the environment. We'll see how it expands in the second session.

Batty about bats prep

I'm getting ready for this year's 2nd grade school residency, Batty About Bats: Learning About the Environment Through the Arts.

Last year's focus was on butterflies and dragonflies. This year the kids will visit the Lied Center to see a puppet performance of Stellaluna before our sessions begin, so the focus is on bats. And puppets. And stories. And the wetlands. The overarching theme is lifecycles, a topic addressed in the 2nd grade educational standards.

I'd like kids to understand how animal puppets mimic the animals they represent. I also want them to see different kinds of puppets, so I tried to build a bat marionette. I'm not sure if it will work, but it was pretty fun to make. Here's the result so far:

I know, the head looks more like a deer than a bat. I like working with Model Magic, but details are tricky in this medium. One difficulty in this is that the wings don't have a lot of flexibility. I've also been playing with a fabric marionette with a Model Magic head, but I'm not far enough along to show it.

I also came up with a simple finger puppet kids could make with craft foam. I tried a couple of thicknesses, finding that 2 mm was the best for wing flappability. Here's the result:
Kids will add the skeletal structure and may decorate them in various ways. I made mine plain.

At a meeting with the teachers the other day, they asked about materials. I was set on the foam, but as we discussed it and they played with the foam puppets, they wondered if construction paper or oaktag would work as well. Brilliant! I love working with teachers--they often see the obvious when I've been blinded by my first idea.

More on this residency as it takes shape. The show at the Lied Center is next week and I'll start meeting with the students after that.

More on dragonflies

Remember the residency I began in September, the one about lifecycles, butterflies, dragonflies, wetlands and puppets (whew!)? To refresh your memories, here's a picture of the fingerpuppets I designed for the 2nd graders (7 year olds) to make:

While I was in Brazil last month, these children went on field trips to the Baker Wetlands.

Yesterday and today, I met with them again. We talked about what we'd done on the first visit and what they remembered from the field trip. They were full of information and even a little bit of misinformation, as 7-year-olds so often are.

We practiced our zipping, zooming and hovering with the fingerpuppets and then we made up a couple of stories about dragonflies. From there, we shifted over to more about puppets, and how they often have exaggerated actions of the creatures they imitate. Trixie denied this, then sneezed her hat off her head dramatically. The baby puppet popped her binky out of her mouth ten times. We sang Poor little bug on the wall again, to reinforce the idea. At the end, we had questions about butterflies, dragonflies, wetlands and puppets. I reminded them of the question words, to forestall the kind of "my grandmother has a dog" statement.

Also this week, I began the shortened version of the residency with the 2nd graders who didn't get to go to the wetlands. They get one session with me. I have eight more schools to visit. Then all the students will go to a big puppet performance at the Lied Center at the end of the month. I'm planning to go, too. 

Dragonfly residency

Today was the second day of the residency with 2nd graders (7-8 year olds), with sessions at four schools. 

To begin with, Trixie thought we were going to do something with flying dragons--she reached into the puppet bag for a dragon marionette (one of the goals was to introduce the students to various kinds of puppets). It took a while to convince Trixie that we were going to talk about dragonflies, not flying dragons and not dragon's flies.

Even the school therapy dog got in on the residency today. She got some good pats while I was talking. 

I asked the kids what they knew about Monarch butterflies, because another goal was to underline what they already knew and to compare butterflies with dragonflies, in preparation for their trip to the Baker Wetlands.

The students knew quite a bit about butterflies. Some of them mentioned metamorphosis, some talked about how the males have black spots on their wings, others brought up the fact that they're poisonous to birds. They knew the stages of the lifecycle and what happens in the chrysalis. 

From there, I brought out two of my dragonfly fingerpuppets and showed the lifecycle (another key concept) from egg to nymph to adult. The kids had made their own puppets and so we all practiced zipping, zooming and hovering. Oh, and eating mosquitoes from our other hands.

We played with having our puppets nod and shake their heads. We played with different voices and the importance of keeping in character. 

I showed the spider glove puppet and we sang "Poor little bug on the wall" together with different emotions so they'd get the idea of conveying various moods with their puppets. 

The sessions were extremely participatory, with lots of questions and answers. I'll meet with the 2nd graders again in November, after they visit the Wetlands and before they go to the Mermaid Puppet Theatre show of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." More on that when it happens!

Last school on the residency

I would have been here in Iola through Thursday, but they kindly rescheduled so I'm only here until Wednesday. I wouldn't have minded being here for the whole time, but this means I only have to spend two nights at the Best Western. That's good.

Today I was at McKinley Elementary. No school dog, but still a very good day. I began with a group of kindergartners, then had first graders, then second and finally fifth. They were all great listeners. Do I say this every time? I always expect them to be and then I get what I expect. Works neatly, eh?

I've got to say, the fifth graders this afternoon laughed more uproariously than most audiences. Not forced laughter, they just were enjoying the session. Sometimes the oldest grade in a school will be a bit reticent about joining in to some of the sillier stuff. These kids participated willingly.

On this whole residency, the students and teachers have been wonderful. There was only one class that I can think of where they were slightly less than stellar when I walked in (and they were much more focused and attentive at the end of my session). I found out the next day that the regular teacher was absent and the one who was there was a substitute. It might have been helpful to know that.

This leads me to think about a slightly odd situation, one I may have written about before. Often, the teachers or principals or librarians don't introduce themselves to me when I arrive. They know who I am so they seem to think I know their names. It's a funny assumption.