Weaving the tale

Sonali Bhatia

Having attended several storytelling sessions, I have noticed that the children in the audience are often mesmerized and enthralled by the tale, and remember events, characters and situations in various stories quite spontaneously and clearly.

What is it that storytellers do to make their tales memorable? How do they hold young children’s attention for up to an hour, and have them asking for more? Here are a few simple techniques many of them use:

A. The storyteller
The storyteller knows her/his story very well, and practises presenting it often before facing the audience. Many storytellers don’t read from a book or sheet, they know the story by heart and have a direct connection with the audience as they narrate it.

Storytellers use voice modulation, facial expression, and body language to good effect while narrating the story. They change pitch for different characters, increase the pace when the action heats up, and deliver dialogues in a stage-whisper to create suspense. Their faces mirror the happiness, sadness, anger or surprise that the characters feel, and often, they actually mime the actions the characters are performing in the story.

B. The audience
The storytellers get the audience involved in the tale. They ask the audience to create the environment for the story – if it’s a forest scene, for example, the audience may be asked to make various animal sounds, if it is a busy street they may toot-toot like the vehicles do, if it is a rainy day they might convey the pitter-patter of raindrops and pretend to shiver with cold.

The audience is often asked to recall past experiences (like being stuck in traffic), to get them to empathize with what the character is going through, and may be challenged to predict what will happen next – what do you think the mouse said to the cat? – and so on.

C. The props
Simple, everyday props can help children grasp what could otherwise have been an abstract concept. Soumya Ayer, for example, brought betel-leaves, mulberry-leaves, and a silk bag, for a storytelling session that involved these three items, to get the children to hold these, look at them, smell them and touch them. When the ‘paan’ had to be prepared in the story, two children actually made ‘paan’ using her betel-leaves!

D. Reading aloud
For those teachers who prefer to read stories aloud, this can also be done incorporating all the elements mentioned above. Just rehearse reading the story beforehand, incorporating various expressions and actions!

With a bit of rehearsal and some planning, any storytelling session for any age group can be a success!

The author is an educator and freelance journalist based in Bengaluru. She can be reached at sonaliarun@gmail.com.