TellingStoriestoChildren.com
Making Stories from Your Life
FOR TEACHERS
Judith holds an BS from Wheelock College in Early Childhood Development and has, for over 25 years taught teachers, as an adjunct professor for Lesley University and guest professor around the nation, how to to utilize storytelling to extend curricular, cognitive, social and emotional objectives.
STORYTELLING IN THE CLASSROOM
Storytelling is a child’s gateway to possibilities. When listening to and participating in a tale, either ancient or contemporary, a child envisions him/ herself as the hero of that conjured world. Without visual images to influence their expectations, they conceive of themselves, small or large, white or black, abled or disabled as the hero/heroine that outwits the giant or wins the day through truth and a pure heart. They also use that often rusty tool called imagination to create their own particular version of the world that you are painting in the broad stroke of the teller. Due to this deep investment, storytelling links the head, the heart, and the imagination, making it the perfect tool for teaching. In this class, you will learn not only how to bring life to the written page and explore your own strengths as a teller, but give thought and practice to utilizing story in furthering cognitive, curricular, and social objectives.
3-4 Days
* Judith has been teaching a related class in the graduate school of Lesley University for over 25 years and also teaches a similar class in her home annually.TellingStoriestoChildren.com
This is an approximately hour- hour and a half lecture/demonstration. It is filled with humor, human experiences, and addresses how storytelling can support the cognitive, curricular, social, and emotional needs of students. Topics covered include:
-The Child as Hero/Heroine of Their World
-Stories and Moral Development
-The Disney Revolution/Taking Back Our Stories
-Empowering the Imagination
-Creating Community Through Stories
-Addressing Social/Emotional Issue
1 hour + lecture
This is a brilliant tool for educators. Utilizing the topics and material you must teach, we will explore how to create and shape stories from those sources. When academic material is presented in a storytelling format you are introducing concrete knowledge through the students heart and imagination. It is a technique you will treasure all your days.
3-4 hours
Often an era, event, or historic movement is best brought to life by someone who lived through it. During our workshop participants will create a character for themselves who will draw listeners through their very personal vantage point on a specific time and place in history.
3 hours – 3 days
During this workshop participants will analyze the art and information they want to share with museum attendees, and learn how to weave it into a story, creation, making the information available through a narrative line. have you ever thought about what an artifact would say if could speak? What would a royal gown from 1780 say about the lady who wore it? How might the keys of a piano describe those who played it? During this workshop we will play with innovative and creative ways of sharing information with museum attendees.
3-7 hours
Rationale: When we are engaged, through our hearts and imaginations, in a story, it’s facts, faces, and philosophy pour in, making an indelible mark on our minds. By engaging students on all these levels we ensure success in the teaching of history and in binding it to a language arts curriculum. Objectives: Using historic reference materials, participants will learn how to cull and shape them into a compelling dramatic tale.
3-4 hours
Have you ever been moved by a story in print and retold it to your class exactly as it was written, only to have it fall flat? Stories were traditionally passed on orally. The invention of the printing press required that those stories be translated into the written word. In order to help that story become three dimensional once again, recapturing the nuance and subtlety of a live communication, you must blow the life back into it. This workshop will offer a model and practice at performing that very act.
2 hours
The wonderful thing about story telling is that it is a folk art rather than a fine art. Far from having to balance on your toes or hit high C, all one has to do is figure out how they tell best. During this workshop we will play with and stretch all of your potential assets for making a story you love come alive for listeners. From dramatic use of your voice, an expressive body, an imagination that creates images in thin air, to dancing fingers, participants will play with techniques. Ultimately, you will emerge with a broader palette of expressive tools to choose from in your storytelling.
3 hours
Let’s Party! This is an interactive workshop during which participants stretch their imaginations and play. Your sense of the possible will grow as your inhibitions diminish, and you will emerge with wonderful techniques to reinforce observational, auditory, and cooperative skills. Many of these exercises can also feed into creative writing projects.
2 hours
Directly addressed, behavioral issues often only compound themselves. When a story, that reflects these issues is told, children have the opportunity to identify with both the issues and solutions that the story offers. This workshop will guide you in creating original stories for your students that deal with and help model behaviors around their social and emotional issues.
3 hours