Cumbee_Destiny_Storytelling Reflection 2

In my graduate-level storytelling course, we are required to tell stories. Throughout the semester the type of storytelling changes that way we get experience presenting our stories in different ways. Before this class, I had only ever told stories to students by simply reading them from a book and showing them the pictures. At this point in the semester, I have done traditional storytelling, but I have also done storytelling with props/manipulatives, interactive storytelling, and storytelling without a book. Each type of storytelling had its own challenges and triumphs, but the one that pushed me the most was interactive storytelling. Because of the challenges that can come with this assignment, I want to share my process and my final results. Although it was new and somewhat difficult for me, after completing the reading I felt so accomplished. 

Interactive storytelling is getting the audience involved in the story, whether that be call and response, movement that matches up with the story, singing, or some other way that the audience is participating in the story. This stumped me because I knew that I would be reading this to high school students and that terrified me. A lot of students that are at the high school are ones that I taught when they were in middle school and they have never seen me read a children's book, much less, perform one. I knew that I would have to go all in and not worry about how those students would respond. My first step was finding a book that would lend itself to being interactive. I have a decent selection of children's books in my library so I started to look around to see what I had on hand. 

I started to think back to all the books that my teachers read to me when I was in elementary school and the ones that I remembered most were interactive. I thought of books like The Kissing Hand and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I knew that those books were typically marketed as interactive, with puppets and magnetic letters, but I wanted to read a book that I hadn't seen in that way before. I sat down at a table with a stack of children's books and went to work. I skimmed the stack to see which books could have an interactive piece to them. I finally landed on Every Dog in the Neighborhood by Phillip C. Stead. One thing that I saw in the book made it very clear to me that it could be interactive .... a clipboard. In the book, Louis is curious about how many dogs are in his neighborhood so he takes it upon himself to survey his neighbors to see how many dogs they have and what their names are. 

I immediately thought about having students write the names on their own papers while I was reading. Once I sat down and read the book through, I discovered how easy this would be to do. The book lends itself to this because every time Louis talks to a neighbor he takes the time to add each dog's name to the numbered list. I knew that I could pause while reading at these occurrences and have students write with me. The only downside that I found with this interaction was that anything that happens in the book before Louis gets his clipboard would not be interactive. 

For my set up I collected 4 clipboards, 1 for me and 3 for my audience, 4 pens, and 4 pieces of paper. I then set up my camera. I wanted to angle my camera so that you could see me and the students as well as the book, but I found if I set it up that far away then the pictures in the book wouldn't be visible. Because of this, I brought the camera closer so that the images were in view, but my students were just behind the camera. I read the book and passed out the materials when I got to the corresponding page. As I read the book I found myself adding to the interactions. Every time Louis knocked on a door in the book my audience would knock with me. I also started spelling the names of the dogs out loud to help the students add them to their papers. 

Reflecting back on the overall product, I wish I had added more interaction or had an activity to follow up the reading. In the recording of my interactive storytelling, I said that we would go around the classroom and take our own survey to see what pets all the students in our class had. I simply said this hypothetically because I was only reading to 3 students, but if I read this to a real class I think this follow-up activity would be really fun for the students and it could help with spelling, counting, and basic social skills. I really enjoyed pushing myself with this reading and wouldn't mind using this form of storytelling in the future.

10 Classic Literature Stories:

-Where the Wild Things Are

-The Velveteen Rabbit

-The Tale of Peter Rabbit

-The Little Prince

-The Giving Tree

-Winnie the Pooh 

-Goodnight Moon

-Corduroy

-If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?