|
|
|
Residencies
Mary Hamilton can visit your school
or community for a week or longer as an artist-in-residence. What
happens during an arts residency? That depends on what you want.
In some residencies, Mary has told stories and/or
conducted workshops with a variety of groups within a single school
or with groups at various locations throughout a community. To learn
more about activities for this type of residency, see performances
and workshops.
In other residencies, Mary has facilitated multi-day
projects with single class-sized groups. The projects described
below are suitable for single class-sized groups who meet with Mary
for five or more sessions.
Storytelling and Developing Literacy
(Preschool, Kindergarten)
Project activities:
- Telling children many folktales to develop
listening skills and exercise their imaginations
- Leading the children in informal dramatizations
of the folktales told
- Soliciting and writing down tales dictated
by individual students
- Leading informal dramatizations of the student-authored
tales
Project goals:
- To increase student listening skills
- To increase student ability to visualize or
imagine based on oral language
- To help students construct connections between
the marks I make on paper and the actions of the actors on stage
when stories students dictate are informally dramatized
This project uses storytelling for literacy
development - a significant preschool and kindergarten activity.
Explore A Story
(Primary, Intermediate)
Project goal:
To increase understanding of the world of a story by helping students
use their imaginations and their intellect to explore a story
Project activities:
- Telling the story (or reading a teacher-selected
tale aloud)
- Retelling the story through round robin retelling
- Informally dramatizing the tale
- Interviewing characters
- Drawing, writing, and researching (depending
on age and skills of the group) to learn even more about the story
back to top
Storytelling & Storyboarding to
Develop Personal Narratives (Primary, Intermediate)
Project goal:
Student development of written drafts of personal narratives.
Project activities:
- Informal student storytelling to choose
a topic
- Creation of visual storyboards
- More informal storytelling and storyboard revision
- Using revised storyboards to create written
rough drafts of personal narratives
(See Using
the Artistic Response Process for a project that addresses revision.)
Creating New Stories from Old
(Primary - Grade 12, grade levels vary depending on the tales used
- see examples at the end of the project description)
Project goals:
- To help students understand that the same story
pattern provides the foundation for many folktale variants
- To use a story pattern to create a new story
Project activities:
- Tell/read to students multiple tales
with the same pattern
- Help students identify the pattern
- Guide students in the creation of new stories
that use the same pattern. Depending upon the age and skills of
the students, this activity may involve storyboarding and retelling;
storyboarding and writing; or outlining and writing. Retelling
to partners or small groups will also be used to aid students
in developing their story ideas.
Here are some sample patterns for different
ages:
Young Primary Students
- Runaway food stories (ex. "The Bun"
and "The Gingerbread Man")
Primary Students
- "The Tailor" a folktale where a tailor
begins with a coat, recycles it into a jacket, recycles again
and again until he is left with nothing but a story to tell. Two
picture books, Something From Nothing by Phoebe Gilman
(Scholastic, 1992) and Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by
Simms Taback (Viking 1999) retell this same folktale. Students
have created a farmer who begins with a barn hit by a tornado,
recycles the wood into a corn crib only to be hit by more storms,
followed by more rebuilding until all that is left is a mailbox
post, then a story.
Older Primary and Intermediate Students
- Traveling companions stories. Examples include
"Jack and the Robbers," "Drakestail," "The
Fool of the World and the Flying Ship." In the first part
of these stories, a character travels gathering companions. In
the second part trouble begins and the companions use their skills
to help save the day.
- Tales of kind and unkind girls (although women,
boys, and men can be main characters too) - Examples include "Toads
and Diamonds," and "The Talking Eggs." In these
stories two main characters, faced with equal opportunities reap
very different results because of their different approaches to
the world.
- Cinderella tales. Hundreds of variants of "Cinderella"
exist. Some are traditional folktales. Today's writers have deliberately
placed others in new settings. Once students are exposed to the
variety beyond the animated and musical versions most have seen
before, they create wonderful new possibilities.
Grade 4 and up
- Hero's Journey tales - In these tales, the
hero/heroine leaves the comforts of the familiar and goes out
into the world. Along the journey, the hero is tested (sometimes
once; sometimes repeatedly) and to pass the test must give up
something of importance or perform a good deed. If/when the hero
passes the test, the hero receives what will be needed (ex. magic,
advice) to be successful in overcoming adversity and establishing
a better life. Using this pattern produces more diverse stories
than those created with use of any other pattern. In fact, folk
and fairy tales have been following this pattern for centuries.
Many modern writers rely on it as well.
back to top
Using the Artistic Response Process
(Middle & High School; with some modifications,
this process will also work with Intermediate & Primary students)
Project goals:
- To teach students and their teachers the Artistic
Response Process (ARP), a formal artist-centered process for responding
to creative work, developed from the work of Liz Lerman and Doug
Lipman
- To use ARP for the revision of student writing
Skills developed through the project:
- How to give honest, specific, and useful compliments
in response to the work of others
- How writers can form questions about their
work that go well beyond "Is it any good?" to engage
those responding to the work in an exploration of the writer's
goals
- How to respond by asking appropriate questions
and making suggestions that honor the goals of the writer
- How to take care of the writer so the writer
feels ready to revise their work after experiencing an ARP session,
not battered, berated, and wondering if the work will ever have
any merit
- How to take notes so the writer will have a
record of the ARP session
Project activities:
- Modeling the use of the ARP with the
whole class teaching students each step of the five-step process
- Modeling and providing practice for students
in doing jobs (writer, process monitor, recorder, responders)
needed for using the ARP in small groups
- Once students develop proficiency using the
ARP as a class, sending them into small groups to continue developing
their skills using this process
This project fits best into the writing
process after students have written a rough draft and before they
have done so much revising they are losing enthusiasm for examining
their work. Kentucky's teachers are expected to 1) help their students
in the creation of a variety of written work; 2) engage their students
in peer revising and peer editing as part of the writing process,
and 3) help students develop the ability to work effectively in
small groups. This project provides a starting point for work to
meet all those expectations.
Learning Folktales, Shaping
Folktale Retellings (a proposed project
for high school students)
This is a half-day (four hour) intensive workshop when I lead it
with adult storytellers. I believe it would lend itself well to
high school writing classes as a way of quickly playing with the
impact changing single elements can have on stories.
Project Activities:
- I would use the short folktale, "Jack
and the Wishgiver," teaching the story to students the same
way I teach it to adults - using a variety of multiple-intelligence
approaches. Methods include outlining setting, plot, characters,
and creating conversations, musical retellings, tableaus, sound
poems, and story maps. Everyone would become familiar with the
tale quickly.
- Next, I would add the concept that tellers
make discoveries during the learning of a story that become decisions
that shape a teller's retelling of the tale. The students would
select (by random draw of a card) a "decision." Then,
each student would shape a retelling/rewriting of the story that
reflects the decision on the card.
- By comparing the same very short story told
in a variety of ways, students would be able to quickly see how
choices/decisions change the tale. Here are just a few of the
"decisions" I have developed for this workshop (each
one a different card in a twenty-six card set).
- Theme: Ask and you shall receive (for Jack
doing this requires courage).
- Theme: Be careful what you wish for because
you just might get it exactly.
- Jack's goal: To use my one wish to help those
near and dear to me.
- Jack's goal: To outsmart the wishgiver. Jack
believes himself to be smarter than anyone so he does not expect
this goal to be difficult.
- From the point of view of the child: Other
parents may tell their children they are brought by the stork,
found in a cabbage patch, or even explain the birds and the bees,
but my folks tell me . . .
- What if the wishgiver is new to the job? This
encounter with Jack is the wishgiver's first opportunity to grant
a wish.
- You have decided clothing can reveal character,
and you want to use clothing as a symbol in your version of the
story.
- The narrator is omniscient (all knowing) so
the inner thoughts of all characters can be revealed.
- The narrator cannot see into anyone's thoughts,
so the story must be told through characters' observable actions,
expressions, and conversations. No inner thoughts allowed.
back to top
The Art of Telling Stories
(Grades 3 - 12)
Project goals:
- To help students learn the characteristics
of the art of storytelling
- To help students increase their ability to
use storytelling tools (body, voice, gestures, facial expression,
imagination)
- To help students shape the telling of a story
for an audience
Project activities:
- Modeling the art of storytelling
- Helping students select stories for telling
- Teaching students how to learn a story without
memorizing the words
- Guiding student retellings of stories, by helping
them learn how to use various storytelling tools (body, voice,
gestures, facial expression, imagination)
- Teaching students how to listen and respond
to one another to bring out each other's best work
- Assisting students with the organization of
an opportunity for them to tell their stories to other classes
in their school.
This project involves students in in-depth exploration
and practice of the storytelling art. Teacher involvement must be
high. In most cases, Mary would not be present for every activity,
but would begin activities that the classroom teacher would work
with students to complete. For example, Mary could model storytelling
and give selection tips, then, in Mary's absence, the students can
read to locate stories they wish to learn to retell. Then Mary would
return to teach students how they can learn the stories without
memorizing the words. Throughout the project, Mary and the classroom
teacher would need to work together closely.
To learn more about any of these projects or to suggest variations
you feel would be more appropriate for your students, please contact
Mary.
back to top
HOME/PROGRAMS/ABOUT
MARY/STORY
STORE/ARTICLES/WHAT'S
NEW?
Mary
Hamilton, Professional Storyteller
65 Springhill Road, Frankfort, KY 40601-9211
Phone & Fax: 1-800-438-4390
Email:
mary@maryhamilton.info
|
|
