massmouth

1. teachers and students talk about StoriesLive® 2011

In 2011, the StoriesLive® program introduced 1,100 junior and senior high school students to the art of 21st century storytelling and awarded $5,000 in scholarship prizes.

StoriesLive® program introduces the art of storytelling, in the classroom, to junior and senior high school and teaches the students valuable presentation, narrative and life skills. It is a curriculum-based program developed by massmouth teaching-artists, who are also professional storytellers. Video #1 [below] shows highlights and participant’s reflections on the program. And, for the truly busy teacher/administrator/specialist, we have video#2 which is a one minute “trailer” -

2. Two, one minute “trailer” style videos

3. the winners from 2011 StoriesLive®

Registration for 2012 slam is ongoing – please contact: stories@massmouth.com for more information.

Highlights of StoriesLive® pilot year -in our first season we:

• Introduced over 1,110 high school students to the art of storytelling in four, 60-minute lesson plans

They told stories on these five themes: Where I am Coming From, Learned  the  Hard  Way, First Time, Lost & Found and Up the Family Tree

• Classroom work culminated in a grade-wide story slam at each high school.

• Awarded $5,000 in scholarship funds to 5 winners at the first ever intra-mural high school story slam.

• Included a full complement of reproducible materials for each school to aid in the instruction of storytelling.

• Supported participating teachers through in-service workshops

• created the massmouth.org/StoriesLive® pages site

•In addition to online materials we held conference calls and blogged

• Students learned valuable skills that helped navigate college and job application processes.

“The final slam event on Saturday at the Cambridge Public Library was excellent! I was moved both to tears and laughter by well crafted tale after well crafted tale.” – Hayley Wood, MassHumanities,  Senior Program Officer

StoriesLive® is supported by a second Project Grant from MassHumanities.org, 2012, various LCC grants through the Massachusetts Cultural Council, generous private donors and is currently securing more funding for the 2012 season.

Join us for the exciting 2012 Scholarship Slam Project.

Students who participate will be able to tell a 2-4 minute personal story by the end of the unit. Personal stories will relate to one of 5 themes:

Here is a short outline of the essential elements of the StoriesLive® program:

Assembly: short introduction to the art of storytelling, story concert modeling the art,  followed by an interactive workshop which is a short version of Lesson 1

Lesson 1 Recap of Assembly, Overview and Story Prompts and Basic elements of an effective narrative including:

Sensory details; 5 Questions; beginning and end; and main take away or point of change they want their listeners to have.

Provide examples of stories

Homework – tell your story 3 times and record “take away”

Lesson 2 Recognize story arc – Context, meaning and “main take away” in a story

Visual representation of stories

Review of feedback format Q&A: Questions and Appreciations

All Students tell part of a story as part of a group

Homewok – tell your story 3 times and notice what changes

Lesson 3 The nonverbal ‘tools’ of storyteller: voice, facial expression and movement

Exercises in performance skills

Students tell stories to each other using new skills

Homewok – tell your story 3 times , note nonverbal elements you will use and fill out Performer’s Check-list to be ready for in-class slam

Lesson 4 Review or fill out Performer’s Check list: in class Story Slam!

Introduce rubric and scoring sheets for audience.

Slam – students tell, evaluate and listen respectfully to each other’s stories.

They may vote on which stories will be sent to the school wide slam or teacher can decide.

 

New this year! Themes will be aligned to the Common App essay prompts!

Up the Family Tree ♦ Where I am From ♦ Learned the Hard Way ♦ First Time ♦ Lost & Found

StoriesLive® is a defined program that has 5 steps but schools may opt for a customized program*

1) Professional Development Workshop

2) Assembly

3) 4 In-Class Lesson Plans

4) A school wide slam

5) StoriesLive® Scholarship Slam in MARCH 31, 2012

* We will work with all schools that are interested in the program and actively seek funding for partner schools.

NOTES:

The Professional Development Workshop(PDW) is led by StoriesLive artist/educators from massmouth.com. The program, lesson plans and workshop activities will be posted on line for participating educators. The Assembly showcases massmouth storytellers who tell a 4 minute personal narrative based on the 5 themes. The Assembly includes hands-on storytelling activities preparing students for their first class. The 4 Lesson Plans are held during class time and implemented as a unit. Storytelling activities comprise the first three lessons; the fourth lesson is an in-class “story slam”. Every student will tell their story. Each high school will have a Schoolwide Slam. The school will promote it. It can be a big or modest event: from a ticketed night or weekend event as a school fundraiser or during the day for as an assembly for a few classes.

Schools may opt to allow junior and senior students from Theater, Speech, district homeschoolers and students in After School Story or Drama Classes, who have a story, but have not taken any StoriesLive instruction to participate in their school wide slam.

Inquire about participation guidelines for this year at: stories@massmouth.com.

Winners of a school wide slam advance to the finals in March 2012. All schools use the same judging rubric and slam format and adhere to basic guidelines. Every teacher will have access to online support from massmouth at the StoriesLive® pages of this website. The schools are encouraged to videotape the students telling their stories. Participating high schools will send a representative to the StoriesLive® Scholarship Slam, which will be held in MARCH 2012, at a TBA theater in Boston.

A story slam is a competitive event in which storytellers perform their work and are judged by panels made up of professional and non professional storytellers and students from their school. The judges are instructed to give numerical scores based on the storytellers’ content and performance. Cash prizes, divided between the top three finalists at the regional slam, will be no less than $5,000.