proposed Plan
Green Valley Public Library is excited to lead a storytelling unit offered through the drama courses at Green Valley Middle and High Schools. Starting this fall the Youth Services staff will introduce and ultimately teach drama students the art of storytelling for a live audience. Due to the popularity of the local drama programs, the Youth Services staff will spend a semester at each school to allow for a full storytelling experience; the high school classes will learn storytelling in the fall with the middle school learning in the spring. Both semesters will culminate with a storytelling night, separate from the schools’ stage shows and musicals, allowing the library and students to highlight their efforts.
We hope to see several things come of the storytelling unit, firstly, increased usage of the library facility and materials by teenagers and young adults, and secondly the establishment of a mutual beneficial relationship between the library and the school system. The potential for reciprocation from the relationship is worth attempting, and the students would only stand to gain from the joining of minds and resources. With the cost of education rising, it is ideal for the library staff to offer its services to the local schools. Storytelling is just one form of dramatic art and with our expertise and experience and the classroom setting, the students stand to learn considerable skills in public performance, adaptation and exercises in creativity.
As many students will need to be reintroduced to storytelling, all drama classes will attend a live story time at the public library to watch our storytellers in action. From there the library staff will meet with the drama classes twice a week to teach the basic forms of storytelling and ultimately to help the students with their own storytelling. Homework in the form of reading storytelling literature as well as viewing other examples of storytelling will help the students familiarize themselves with this art form.
After four weeks of initial instruction, the students will begin choosing stories to tell to each other and familiarize themselves with techniques to learn stories as well as ways to perform, starting with the familiar folk and fairy tales to aid in confidence building for the final and public performance. Gradually, we will work with the students to build confidence, but also to help the students interact and draw the audience into the performances. By mid-semester, the students will select their story night stories and begin working on them, so the course focus will shift from instruction to application. Ideally, the story selected for the final performances will be personal adaptations developed by the individual students and not a simple retelling. We would like to emphasize the students’ personal creativity as much as possible.
Depending
on the initial success of the program, we would like to consider
expanding the
program to an advanced storytelling course within the drama department
in the
future.