Kate McDowell on Storytelling

http://youngstorytellers.com/

Welch, Wendy. "Who Owns the Story?" Storytelling, Self, Society, 5:1-22, 2009. Welch asks the big question (above) systematically, using both legal and ethnographic arguments. But she doesn't answer it, and ultimately what she provides is a broad exploration of the facets of the question and ways of answering. This is a strong candidate as a text for the storytelling course precisely because it presents a range of answers. At the same time, I admit to a sense of disappointment as a scholar: she touches on individual/personal ownership, cultural ownership, authenticity (and claims to authenticity), the idea of "respect" and its limits, and even sacred stories, but she doesn't ultimately get beyond a postmodern issues of representation. She tackles them in concrete, not critical theory, terms, and that's a big plus, but her conclusion about "thoughtful people of integrity on all sides of this issue" is just shy of relativism. I wished for...

The Story Factor by Annette Simmons This deserves a place on the bibliography, but not on the reading list, for LIS409 Storytelling. It's a business book with one good idea, which is a list of six types of stories that you need to know how to tell in order to have influence: stories of 1) who am I, 2) why am I here, 3) the vision, 4) teaching, 5) values-in-action, and 6) I know what you are thinking. This reference came to me from a student who used this framework to analyze the stories told by presidential candidates. Her paper, with edits, would be as solid as this book. It's not a bad book, but like so many business-oriented books for the mass market, it oversimplifies. While the categories are useful starting points, greater explanation and analysis would be needed for the reader to gain real skills in the use of storytelling in business. If I add this one, I really need to add or assign a chapter/article by Julian Orr about how storytelling in business actually work...

These three books share a world as a setting, and have a few characters in common, but they are not a conventional series like the Harry Potter books or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The relationship is a bit like that of The Hobbit to The Fellowship of the Ring. We begin with a story of Orrec Caspro as a boy, but years are lost between the first and second books; the next book shows him as an accomplished and renowned poet. It's like The Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones, which skips Christopher Chant's middle years entirely, showing him only as boy and then as master. Gifts High on desolate, rocky hills live lonely peoples whose supernatural gifts allow them to unmake, sicken, or injure one another. These small bands do constant battle for the scant resources that are there. Orrec and Gry have been friends all their lives, and they hope to marry, but their families each have planned other marriages in order to increase their wealth. Orrec struggles with blindnes...

Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story by Kendall Haven Here's how I can imagine discussing this one in 409: --Chapters 1, 2, and 7: all are about the definition of "story," including pitfalls of previous overly broad definitions. --Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6: all are about the way the human mind is set up to use story. --Chapters 8, 9, and 10: 8 is anecdotes, 9 is research results, 10 is concluding inspirations. Haven is redundant in a way that is probably reinforcing in the oral, but drags in the written version. I wished several times that chapter 7 followed chapter 2; he doesn't give enough sense of why the brain science is compelling before spilling the beans on what he thinks a story actually *is.* When that's the main point of a book, you want to know it up front. Too many of the chapters are full of long paragraphs quoted from other research, strung together by bare connective tissue that is less an argument and more a "see this,...

I skimmed the above book at rapid-fire pace today, and here's what I came away with: Jenkins is all about how multiple forms of media allow consumers to become participants. He wrote chapters on the group that tried to sleuth out how each season of Survivor would end by analyzing the footage frame-by-frame, the American Idol participatory phenomenon, and the Matrix with its "transmedia storytelling" through 3 movies, games, and websites. Jenkins writes: "Transmedia storytelling is the art of world making." And I think of all those fantasy novelists who have always been involved with world making, but their worlds were specific to the medium of print. Except when there were also role playing games... "Transmedia storytelling" is an interesting idea, and one I imagine I'll be mulling over for awhile. Finally, he has a chapter on Harry Potter, which I know I'll be assigning to my students for next fall, because it's all about children a...

"Storytime Model for Large Groups" by Amanda Williams, in Children and Libraries v5 n2, p. 27 Pithy article that gives a template for best practices in such storytimes, based on her dissertation work, which in turn was based on about interviews with practicing librarians. What she writes holds true in my experience, but it's one of those dogged old difficulties with programming: the joy is in the spectacular presence of one's self with one's audience. Boiling this down into a template of best practices drains all that interactive joy, even when Williams spells out that this is a "guide" and needs adjustment for specific situations. Good article, very helpful for new practitioners especially and for those without a performance background who might feel overwhelmed with large groups. And yet the heart of the storyhour, its basis in storytelling practices of audience interaction even when the materials themselves are entirely print-based and no actual ...

Each of these books spends some time on storytelling performance... The Way of the Storyteller by Ruth Sawyer Talks about vocal technique in the chapter "A Technique to Abolish Technique" (p. 131-151). This title more or less captures the attitude that has traditionally been part of children's librarianship in regards to storytelling. The storyteller effaces herself in favor of the tale. And while I see the wisdom in foregrounding the tale over the teller, especially for beginning storytellers, it's an attitude that certainly predates the feminist revolution. For that reason alone, it deserves rethinking. Olcott had a similar quote in one of her articles: "The more informal the story hour, the greater the lack of selfconsciousness (sic) on the part of the children, and this is to be aimed at, as a perfect effacement of self makes a receptive audience." from Olcott, Work with Children at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, p70. However, Saw...

The Digital and Traditional Storytimes Research Project. By: Collen, Lauren . Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children , Winter2006, Vol. 4 Issue 3, p8-18, 11p Fascinating article on using books from the International Children's Digital Library in storytimes, but there were a few things I left the article wondering... First, the comparison of size was page-to-monitor, but no info was given about the size of the projection in front of the children. How did it compare to standard big books? Second, the comparison was between a standard storytime with a reader and book in the front of the room and a storytime with a projection of a book from the ICDL with a reader sitting "in the audience" with the children. Collen concludes that children pay better attention to the digital story, but she doesn't account for this major difference. Children, given a storyteller who is a live and interesting person, will invariably ask ...