2008 SCLLN Literacy Conference: Storytelling

Southern California Library Literacy Network – 2008

One of the highlights of the day was the 90 minutes spent with Patti Christensen, where she explained how she teaches story telling. She explained how she uses props to help her learners (she calls them learners instead of students) warm up to reading through story-telling.

At the end of her presentation she passed around her Mother's old button box and asked every participant to feel the contents and select one button that brought forward a memory for them. Then she asked to hear those stories.

~ One man came to the head of the group holding a large circular, four-holed, flat, mostly undecorated button. He said when he was a young man he went on travel to Europe for his job and in that other country he met and fell in love with a business woman from another company . . . . .

~ A second person stood and offered a story. The woman held up a big, two holed white button. My parents died when I was young, she said. And I was put in an orphanage. All the little girls, like me wore cotton pinafores designed like my mother's apron had been . . . . .

~ A third person stood to tell about the very tiny golden button she held between two fingers and a thumb. One day when I was very young, she said, I met a cricket in my bedroom. What is that you have on your face? I asked the cricket and he said he was wearing a magic gold face mask . . . . .

I rewrote all three stories this morning with all the details I could recall. This morning I shared my experience and these stories with my Braille reading group and they enjoyed hearing the button stories as much as I did. What followed for us was a half hour of shared folklore and family recollections -- all that, brought about by Patti Christensen's brilliant presentation on Saturday morning.

Thank you again for your generosity. You and the folks at the library have been enormously kind to me. I feel quite blessed to work there and hope my library experiences with you and the students we help just keep getting better and better.

Jackie Cotton

Storytelling Resources:

Festival

Storytelling on the Internet

~ Brave Tales: Developing Literacy Through Storytelling
by Will Coleman, Network Continuum Education 2007