Whipping up a yarn
Deepa Kiran
There may be children who don’t like to sing, others who don’t like to dance, but it is highly unlikely to find children who don’t like to listen to a story. I have found that even those rare ones who say they don’t like to listen to a story, end up getting involved and enjoy the story once it starts. This is because storytelling is about ‘creating’. It is about creating an interesting work of art in one’s own mind, with one’s own mind. It gives us the same joy and satisfaction as we get from engaging in our favourite hobby.
The storyteller triggers the listener’s imagination and with the help of the story she channelizes the ‘day dreaming/inherent imaginative’ possibilities of the child. Even a shy child feels a total sense of participation without going through the discomfort of having to ‘perform’ her art or ‘show’ her art work in front of the class.
Story
On the branch of a lush green mango tree in a beautiful jungle, there lived two crows. Their names were Nippu and Burra. They would go out in search of food together. ‘Caw caw’ their voices would pierce through the jungle. When they found the food, they would eat to their heart’s content.
Nippu was happy and cheerful all the time while Burra was a grumpy-faced crow and always jealous of his friend. One day Burra said, “Nippu we need to have a competition to decide which of us is stronger.” Nippu was not interested in competing with his friend. But Burra insisted and finally Nippu agreed.
Each of them was to fly up in the sky with a bag full of salt hanging from his beak. Whoever could fly higher would be the winner! So Burra put the salt into two cloth bags. ‘Wushik wushik wushik’, the salt was thrown into the bags. But just before they started to fly up, Burra changed his bag secretly. Nippu noticed that when they started to fly, Burra’s bag did not have salt but instead it was filled with cotton. Nippu felt sad.
‘Oh! This is cheating’ thought Nippu, but Burra had soared high up into the sky by then with his light weight cotton bag. Meanwhile, Nippu struggled to fly with his salt bag. He felt very sad but he kept trying and flying anyway. At that moment something strange happened. Suddenly it began to rain. The rain washed away the salt from the porus cloth bag and Nippu’s bag became light. And the same rain soaked the cotton in Burra’s bag and it became heavy!
Nippu happily flew up into the sky and won the competition. Burra, in spite of cheating, lost!
“Caw Caw,” Nippu landed happily as the winner.
Activity: what and why?
Ask
Did you enjoy this story? What did you enjoy in the story? What did you like the most in the story?
These are questions that the teacher needs to ask. Children become so involved in the story that they will be very excited to share their feelings and opinions about it. They have listened to the story with such concentration that it has become their experience now. Psychology tells us that the mind cannot differentiate between a real and imagined experience. This means that even though the story is not ‘real’, the emotions and responses of the child are ‘real’.
Art-response
The last time we discussed the need to listen to the child as she speaks up after the story. We looked at the need to stay with open-ended questions that elicit personal opinions and feelings from the child. But what about those children who still hesitate to speak up? What about the children who have comprehended the story but are not very articulate or expressive verbally? A good way to reach these children is to offer an art-response activity.
Drawing activity: Ask the children to draw (preferably on a plain sheet of paper) their favourite scene from the story. Most children will jump to the task but for those who hesitate, it is our responsibility as facilitators to gently nudge the child to take up the task. Each child will draw out in as simple or as complex a manner according to their interest and ability.
In the process of doing this activity, the child has to revisit the story to make his/her choice of the scene. Hence it is a personal revision of the story. The child has the freedom to select the scene of her choice and therefore feels personally connected to the activity.
Through the drawing the child is demonstrating his/her comprehension of the story. In fact we are offering the child an option to express his/her feelings/ understanding without the use of language. This is very valuable especially for children who are less verbally expressive. The children can be asked questions informally about what they have drawn. This encourages them to speak up. They can be asked to write small dialogues for each character in the drawing. This encourages them to try and write in their own way.
The children who are more articulate will also enjoy this task as they get to explore language through art.
We will look at more possibilities in the forthcoming articles in the series. Along the way some telling tips will also be shared.
Telling tips:
- For older children, you can flesh out detailed descriptions of the tree and the crows.
- Encourage children to fill in the story by giving their descriptions of the characters.
- Create the jungle scene by eliciting sounds of the jungle from the children such as the howling winds, the hooting owls, etc.
- Imitate the expressions of the ‘cunning Burra’ and ‘the innocent Nippu’.
- Stop at the point where Burra changes the bag and ask children, “What do you think Nippu felt then?”
- After the storytelling is over, ask the children what they would do if they were in Nippu’s place?
- For children below 10, get more dramatic with the actions of the crows flying and the cawing. You can add/make a song here.
Hope you enjoy exploring this story. Do rehearse a few times well before sharing it with the class. Happy storytelling!
The author is a storyteller, educationist, writer and voice-over artist. She holds storytelling performances with music and dance woven in. She conducts training workshops for teachers on the art of storytelling and using it in the classroom. She is also the founder of Story Arts India (www.storyartsindia.com), an organization that offers storytelling shows and training programs for children, teachers, parents and all storytelling enthusiasts. She can be reached at over2deepakiran@gmail.com. You can also visit her facebook page storyartsindiaofficial or view her storytelling videos on YouTube.
