Sherry Norfolk ~ "The Kaleidoscope Residency" Study Guide

Program Description

The Kaleidoscope Residency is a hands-on, highly interactive program during which students get immediate exposure to both the art and process of storytelling. Students learn storytelling techniques which build important language and communication skills, increase poise and enhance self-esteem. Students select, learn, polish and perform a folktale, giving and receiving peer feedback and practicing good public speaking and audience skills. The format provides a safe environment for discovering and exploring individual creative and communicative strengths and adapts successfully for students from 2nd grade through high school.

Artist Bio

Sherry Norfolk is an acclaimed performer, appearing in Hong Kong, Anchorage, the Bahamas, Honolulu, Grand Canyon National Park and hundreds of points in between. With a B.A. in Elementary Education and a Masters in Library Science, she performs and teaches storytelling residencies through Young Audiences Woodruff Arts Center, Springboard to Learning / Young Audiences of St. Louis, and several state arts councils. Sherry is co-author with her husband Bobby of The Moral of the Story: Folktales for Character Development, 2nd Ed. (August House, 2006), and co-editor of The Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum (Libraries Unlimited, 2006).

Background on Art Form

Storytelling is the art of using words, gestures, facial expression, and body language to bring a story to life in the listener’s imagination. From the beginning of time, storytelling has been the way cultures have preserved and celebrated their memories, passed on their values and belief systems, entertained, instructed and reported. Today, storytelling is recognized as one of the most effective brain-compatible teaching strategies, accessible for children with diverse abilities and disabilities, and applicable to all “ways of knowing.” Storytelling continues to invite us all to “Enter the Theater of the Mind-the Imagination!”

Pre/Post Activities

Prepare (Pre- or pre-performance)

Teachers, please read this to your students:

In our residency with Sherry Norfolk this week, you’ll all be learning how to become storytellers! She says that everyone can tell a story - and that every one of you will and should do it differently. Just as we all have different styles of communication, we all have different styles of storytelling, and each person’s style is right for them. But be ready to try new things, even things that might make you feel a little foolish, a little embarrassed – even a little scared. Be willing to stretch your comfort zone and discover what really works for you. If you do, you’ll each find your own unique voice and style – and everyone will succeed! Ms. Norfolk says that there’s no way to do this wrong except to just not try. So be prepared to SUCCEED – you’ll never know what you’re capable of until you try!

Warm Up Activity & Questions to set the stage for engaging students:
Here’s a quick activity to engage everyone in personal storytelling. Afterwards, they are ready to answer some questions that will take them more deeply into the experience, and ready them for Kaleidoscope!
  1. Write three or four fairly universal topics on the board, such as “How I Got This Scar,” “My Most Embarrassing Moment,” “I Was So Scared!” or “Learning to (ride a bike, rollerblade, ski).”
  2. Tell the class that each person will choose one of these topics, and tell a partner about it for 2 minutes.
  3. Explain that you want the partner to really be able to visualize what happened, so the teller should be as descriptive as possible, including information about how things tasted, smelled, sounded, looked, and felt. (You may wish to give a example by telling them a short, vivid story about one of those topics yourself.)
  4. Remind the class that each person will talk for 2 minutes, and that they must continue to talk even if they run out of something to say -- make it up!
  5. At the end of two minutes, ask the listeners to tell the speakers what they liked about the story they just heard. Then reverse the roles, asking the listener to become the teller, and allowing time for feedback.
Some hints:
  • Ask partners to face each other directly, make eye contact and pay attention to the one doing the talking!
  • After they have settled with their partners, ask students to raise their hands if they are telling to their partner first -- it saves a lot of time!
  • Don’t listen to any particular pair -- simply circulate to keep everyone on-task. They will be much less self-conscious.
Questions:
  • How many of you could visualize the story your partner was telling you? (Typically, every hand will go up – giving you the opportunity to announce, “Congratulations! You’re all storytellers!”)
  • Why did it work? What helped you see and hear and feel it? Vocal expression, facial expression, body language?
  • How did you feel when your partner was listening to your story? How would you have felt if he/she kept looking away, talked to someone else?
  • What skills do you think a professional storyteller has that you don’t?

Reflect (Post- or post-performance)

Using a post-performance rubric (supplied upon request), students privately evaluate their own performances, paying attention to what they did well, what could’ve been improved, and what they would do differently the next time.

Additional Activities

Start a Storytelling Club in your school, encouraging children to continue to find and tell stories. (See Raising Voices: Creating Youth Storytelling Groups and Troupes below for answers to all of your questions!)

Or -- Have a Story Walk. Station student tellers at discrete intervals along a nature path near the school. Each teller should be prepared to tell a 3-5 minute story, and should be provided a space big enough for 5 or 6 kids to gather around and listen. Schedule classes to visit the story walk, rotating groups of 5 or 6 kids around the story at 5 minute intervals.

Vocabulary

Attitude -- The emotions a character conveys.
Body language -- Using the body to convey emotions and attitudes or to portray characters.
Characters -- The people or animals who are in the story.
Setting – Where the story takes place.
Context --The circumstances surrounding a particular event within the story.
Gesture -- Arm and hand movements that convey meaning.
Visualization – seeing, hearing and experiencing the story in your imagination.

Resources for Teachers & Students
Websites

www.youthstorytelling.com/sig
At this site you can find information about the National Storytelling Network’s Youth & Education in Storytelling Special Interest Group, as well as the National Youth Storytelling Pegasus Awards and more!

Books

Hamilton, Martha and Mitch Weiss. Children Tell Stories: A Teaching Guide. Richard C. Owens Publishers, 1990.
MacDonald, Margaret Read. The Storyteller’s Start-Up Book: Finding, Learning, Performing, and Using Folktales. August House, 1993.
National Storytelling Association. Tales as Tools: The Power of Story in the Classroom. National Storytelling Press, 1994.
Norfolk, Sherry and Jane Stenson, Diane Williams. The Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum. Libraries Unlimited, 2006.
Rubright, Lynn. Beyond the Beanstalk: Interdisciplinary Learning through Storytelling. Heinemann, 1996.
Sima, Judy and Kevin Cordi. Raising Voices: Creating Youth Storytelling Groups and Troupes. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003.

  Georgia  Performance
  Standards

Listening/Speaking/Viewing

Warm Up Questions for “Listening/Speaking/Viewing”:

  1. Describe the perfect audience.
  2. What are some of our class rules for being good listeners?
  3. How do we show someone we appreciate their visit to our school or classroom?
  4. How does being part of an audience help make you a good citizen?
  5. What are some examples of bad audience behavior or attitudes?
  6. How does a negative audience member effect your enjoyment of a show or performance?
  7. How would this make the performer feel?
  8. How do we want the performer to feel when they leave our school or classroom?