BURSTING TO READ !

"A Story At Play, A Story At Work" | "A Spy Sneaks In"

A STORY AT PLAY, A STORY AT WORK
(published by "The Journal of the Virginia State Reading Association")

When I was little, I loved to have my mother read to me, and I knew that one day I wanted to be able to read for myself. My sister was five years older than I was, and I watched with great envy when she went to school. One fall her new teacher asked her, "What does your father do for a living, dear?"
My sister said, "Oh, my father doesn't work. He just sits around in his chair all day and reads."
The teacher quickly found an excuse to call my mother and ask if our family was . . . all right . . . what with our father being out of work.
My mother was puzzled. After she sorted out why the teacher was asking such a question, though, she said with more than a little pique, "Oh. Her father does have a job, actually. That's the reason he reads all day. He's a college professor!"
At last it was my turn to go to school to learn to read for myself. I was thrilled! I was convinced that when I went to school, I would instantly be a Reader. When my mother left me off for my first day of kindergarten, I was shown to my desk. It was smack in the middle of a huge room filled with identical desks. The room was completely stark, except that all around the borders of the wall, up by the ceiling, were placards with letters on them. I understood that these were the key to my learning how to read, but I had no clue what any of them signified. I felt overwhelmed and intimidated.
When I realized that I was not to become a Reader that day, or that week or even that year, I was devastated. Even now, I don't want to think about how long it took me to achieve actually becoming a Reader!

But fortunately, I had a mother who read to me and a father who modeled reading, so I was motivated to learn. And once I did learn, I read voraciously. Eventually, it was that childhood reading that brought me, by a circuitous route, to my adult career as a storyteller.
But what happens to children who don't learn love of books at home? What happens
when children don't have stories read or told to them? They miss an integral part of their education, for it is through listening to stories that children begin to understand language. They absorb grammar by hearing it spoken correctly. They learn form by hearing stories with patterns of threes and plots with beginnings, middles and ends. They learn empathy and morality by identifying with characters in the stories.
In this time when teachers must be concerned with whether or not their students will be successful in standardized test taking, is there time to do something as frivolous as letting children hear stories? Is it possible to integrate oral storytelling with the required curriculum?
Absolutely!

TYPES OF STORIES

Storytelling comes in many forms. Here are a few of them and how they relate to classroom learning and reading.

HISTORY: Studying the War of 1812, students can learn the facts of the war, which they may or may not retain until the test. But if they hear the story of the British warships landing and Dolley Madison running about the President's house trying to save her parrot and a huge portrait of George Washington from the British soldiers before fleeing for her life, they will understand the war on a far more intimate level, and they will retain it far longer.
FOLKLORE: Because folk tales are so old, they contain time-tested and potent messages for life. Couched in story, these messages are presented in a non-threatening, non-didactic manner. When young children hear the story of "The Three Little Pigs," they don't need to be
told that it pays to think ahead and take time to carefully build their lives. The message comes
through clearly as part of the story itself. The tale also sets up a rhythmic pattern of threes: three little pigs building three houses out of three different materials; three attempts by the wolf to get in. So the listener is experiencing language patterns and learning to predict outcomes.
PERSONAL: Many of the best storytellers today are telling personal stories, and often those stories are about their childhood days. Children come to school every week, full of talk about what happened over the weekend or on the way home from school. But often they either ramble on and on with no focus, or they skip the details altogether! If they hear fully fleshed-out experiences fashioned into complete, coherent stories by their teacher or a professional storyteller, they will begin to see a connection between real life and literature.
MYTHOLOGY: All of literature and much of our contemporary lives are based on the gods and events of myths. These gods had the same emotions and flaws as mortals. Everything was simply bigger and more extreme with the gods! Through Hercules students learn about the pitfalls of unleashed anger. Through Perseus they understand perseverence and willingness to accept help.
In addition, these stories are full of etymology. The word " furious" comes from the Furies. Our symbol for the medical profession comes from the winged caduceus given to Hermes by Zeus. The days of our week are named from Norse myths.
LITERATURE: Classic literature can seem inaccessible because the way we speak and write has changed so completely over the centuries. If, however, students experience the story of clever Odysseus battling brutal Cyclops told orally, they will have a frame of reference when they try to read "The Odyssey." After all, many of these classic stories were passed on orally long before they were written down and read. The same process holds true of the stories of Dickens and Poe and Hawthorne. Once people become familiar with oral versions of the stories, they become enthused about them and can then be more open to reading these more difficult stories.

INCLUDING STORIES IN SCHOOL
Once schools and their teachers agree that these different types of stories have relevance to their curriculum, how can they include them in school?
Students benefit by hearing storytelling, whether it is presented by a professional storyteller in an assembly or informally by their own teacher. The act of listening is enough!
However, it is also possible to make sure that storytelling reaches students in various ways. Storytelling can be done in costume with a few props. This is particularly appropriate when period clothing or related items heighten understanding of historical periods.
Storytelling can engage the most restless of children. The stories themselves are mesmerizing. Children who can't sit still for anything else will sit in open-mouthed wonder as they let themselves drop into a story and visualize it for themselves. Thus many fairy tales and other stories are best told with nothing added, allowing the listeners' own imaginations to roam, exercising a part of the brain that is stilled while watching television.
Some stories lend themselves to whole audience participation in refrains of words or gestures. This kind of participation enhances the rhythm and patterns of repetition that give folk
tales so much power. It is also a way to enable children to do controlled wiggling!

Then there are tellers who invite students to act out story with them, thereby engaging the kinesthetic learner. Students are energized not only by participating but also by watching their friends participate.
And when students are given the time and opportunity to learn to tell stories themselves, storytelling opens the door to self-expression. Nothing teaches a story or a form better than actually doing it. When students experience telling a story out loud for a group, their skills in presenting any kind of class report are honed. If they've had to research history or literature or folklore or myths in order to find the story to tell, they will remember that research, and that story will settle deep inside their mind and memory.
So, does story have a place in school, not just as an entertainment, but as a part of the curriculum? Without any question, the answer is yes. Story is a gift to the teller and a gift to the listener.

A SPY SNEAKS IN:
Crafting the Story of a Civil War Spy
by Lynn Ruehlmann
(published by "Storytelling World" under the title "Crafting History Stories")

One.
One day, as I stood in the foyer of my friend's house, waiting to collect my daughter after a visit with her daughter, my friend asked: "What's your next storytelling project?"
"I'm not sure yet," I said. "I've decided it's time to do a history show. What I'd like most would be to find a really interesting woman from Virginia, so the show could tie into our state curriculum requirements."
"Oh?" said my friend. "My daughter is doing her History Day project on this woman from Virginia who passed spy notes during the Civil War by pretending to be crazy."
"Oh! Oh!" I clamored. "I've read about her! Somewhere I've even got a copy of a fictionalized story I saved about her for future use -- I didn't remember she was from Virginia, though! I know her name … it's, ah, it's … oh! It's 'Crazy Bet,' right?"
"That's it," confirmed my friend.
"She's perfect! Thank you, thank you!"
And I went home to start researching.

Two.
Once I'd read enough to decide that Crazy Bet, whose real name was Elizabeth Van Lew, was in fact a subject that fascinated me and a woman who would be the perfect fit for my next storytelling project, I set about finding more information about her.
I searched local libraries for books and magazine articles on Van Lew and other related subjects -- female spies during the Civil War and an overview of the conflict itself. Every time I found a book that was well-researched, I made sure to look over the bibliography.
That was how I discovered that Van Lew had kept a diary during the Civil War that had been reprinted! It was also how I found that some of her papers are still archived at The College of William and Mary. Needless to say, I found a free day and headed to Williamsburg to read them.

Three.
Now the project loomed formidably. I had way too much information! My show could only be 45 to 50 minutes long. I had books and articles and handwritten notes that contained scattered pieces of information about a woman's life. I had information about being a spy during the Civil War. And I had huge volumes of history on the war itself.
How could I ever consolidate it into one show that would be educational and entertaining and cohesive enough to be both artistic and readily understood by audiences of various ages?
I needed an overview of an entire war, but I also wanted to be specific about one brave woman who put a human face on history.
I needed to break the project down into manageable pieces.
I started by putting the information I found most pertinent on index cards.
I looked again at what I knew about Elizabeth and identified the stories that I personally found most intriguing.
I waited for a day when no one was home but the dog and cats and tried to keep them at bay while I spread out the index cards on the floor.
I began by arranging my favorite stories about Van Lew herself in chronological order, leaving big spaces in between.
Then I went through all my other index cards and plugged them into what seemed for each one to be the most appropriate spot between the stories. When I was done, there were still a lot of cards left over. Get a grip, I told myself. You can't include everything in one program!
I set the unused cards aside.
I stacked the other cards in the order upon which I'd decided. I waited a few days to let it all settle. Then I headed for the computer and made an outline of the emerging program.

Four.
Now I could see that I had a potentially powerful show. And yet I still wasn't exactly sure how to combine all these marvelous stories with background information.
It happened that I had a short tour scheduled about this time, so I put Elizabeth Van Lew in the back of my mind during the drive into the mountains of Virginia. One afternoon, after I'd finished my shows for the day, I found some fields on the mountainside, parked the car, and started walking and talking to myself about the problem.
Should I be narrator and tell these stories as individual unrelated incidents with the facts sandwiched in between? It could be done that way; but wouldn't it be more fun to have one unbroken story? And if that were the case, wouldn't it be a whole lot more interesting to have a Civil War-era persona tell the stories?
I could be Elizabeth herself. But, frankly, she was a difficult woman -- courageous but stern. I wasn't sure I could create as engaging a narrative if I had to behave that way throughout the show. In retrospect, it might actually have been fun to take on this character; but, at the time, it didn't seem appealing.
I also had to decide on the time frame of my program. Van Lew's story continued after the war was over, but I had to make choices; and it seemed to me the most powerful part of the story was what happened during the war itself.
Who, who, who, I thought, could best tell this story? Someone who could be at once objective and omniscient. I tramped and tramped and let my mind drift to the enjoyment of the gorgeous, crisp fall day and the parchment crackle of walking across mowed ground. Suddenly there was a burst of light in my mind!
The niece!
At the archives in the William and Mary library, I had read an article in an old Harper's Magazine in which Van Lew's niece had returned to the family mansion years after the war and rediscovered the attic room where her aunt had hidden escaped Union prisoners.
There was barely any information at all about the niece, but she had been in the mansion during the Civil War. She survived the war to know how everything turned out. She knew her aunt.
And she also knew what outsiders thought about Crazy Bet!
So, when I returned home, I was set to write the script. Now I needed to figure how to segue from one incident to the next -- and how to slip in facts about the Civil War, so that the story would make sense to those not well-versed in the period, yet offer a fresh perspective for aficionados. My stack of index cards gave me the grounding I needed along with the freedom to move material around and toss out what didn't fit.

Five.
Finally I had a script to learn. Once again, it seemed like a formidable task. But then I remembered: these are stories, after all! I may have decided to wear a period dress and include a few props, because I was doing a first-person story -- but what I do is tell stories, and I'd picked ones that fascinated me.
Consequently, just as I do with folklore, I learned the chronology of the stories in the show and the transitions between. I memorized some actual quotes but scripted the rest in my own words.
As I began performing the show, I found parts that didn't flow as well as I had imagined when I wrote it.
So I reordered and revised.
And eventually settled into "Spy! The Story of Civil War Spy Elizabeth Van Lew."