STORYTELLING

Styles of Storytelling
• depend on stories, listeners, storytellers
• involve
• the posture and position of the storyteller
with regard to listeners
• eye contact:
• established
• withheld
• body language
Robert Munsch
Storytelling Can Be So Much Fun!

•Here are a few tips and hints on how to tell a great story from expert storyteller Robert
Munsch,

•1. Be yourself, develop your own style.

•2. First read the story, and then write it down. Then tape yourself telling the story.
•3. Start telling the story using your own words.
•4. Tell stories on the bus, during bath time or while cooking.
•5. Make your voice loud and clear.
•6. Include simple songs or chants to bring the story to life.
•7. Use repetition of a word or a phrase.
•8. Move around to act out the story.
•9. Have your child pick a favourite toy or use one of your old stuffed animals to be a
character in the story.
•10. Relax and have fun
 • Predictability
• Moral/ethical duality
• Characters – typical, static (noble, lazy,
Stories to tell - wise, poor…)
also • Virtue rewarded – vice punished
• Repetition
• Events/ideas
• Refrains
• Redundant formulas (“huffed, puffed
and blew”)
 • Simple grammar
• Short sentences
Language • Present and past tenses
• Simple connectiors
• Direct speech
• Concrete vocabulary
• Concrete ideas and themes
 • Choose a story you like/enjoy
• Prepare well
• Enough time
TIPS FOR • Make a story skeleton

TELLING • Practice telling (never learn it by heart)

• Rehearse again and again
• Prepare the telling in class
• Tell the story
An Example
The Stonecutter
A Chinese Folk Tale
Varous versions
Story 'Skeleton' consists of:
 plot outline
• sequence of main events / key points
• (a time line, bubbles, a diagram, a list)
• the beginning and the ending sentences
 background information
STORY
 formulaic expressions essential to the story (if SKELETON
there are any)
Also:
 some character detail
 notes on the story
Story skeleton - example
• Once upon a time, there was …
• a stonecutter
• …
• … Oh, that I were a …, and mightier than
• … any! How happy I’d be.
• ...
• … Your wish is heard; the … you will be.
• …
• a stonecutter
• Never again did he wish to be what he was not.
Examples:
Loose Tooth
Tellers
• Andrew’s Loose Tooth by R. Munsch ; told by a child
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciW8Do9KO2Q
• Paperbag Princess by R. Munsch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12GUgtNPPs&feature=re
lated
;
• told by Rick Huddle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4XOmBe4Lr8&feature=relat
ed

• storyteller Diane Ferlatte

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKcNrgaGakM&feature=re
lated

• Irish Storyteller Michael R. Kasony-O'Malley: “Bridgette and

the Lurikeen," an old Irish folktale about a girl and a
leprechaun.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/igo72tfsoo34xpt/AACC791J5Ezx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAUe1e1sHkY&feature=r
elated
Z9Z7a1B1OBsOa?dl=0
 • Ellis,G., Brewster, J.(1991) The Storytelling handbook
for Primary Teachers, London: Penguin.
• Ellis,G., Brewster, J. (2002) Tell it Again: The New
Some Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers, Penguin.
• Morgan, J., Rinvolucri, M. (1983) Once Upon a Time.
references CUP.
• Phillips, S. (1999) Drama With Children. OUP.
• Taylor, Eric K. (2000) Using Folktales. CUP.
• Wright, Andrew (1995) Storytelling with children.
OUP.
• Wright, Andrew (1997) Creating Stories with children.
OUP.