National Storytelling Summit Twelve Days And Counting!

Chocolate Martini

http://www.charlotteblakealston.com/ - She'll be there!

Carrie Sue Ayvar will be there too

Priscilla Howe is going to teach us about writing

National Storytelling Summit Is almost here!

It is almost here! It is almost time. We are California bound.

It is almost time for sitting around and talking about storytelling over Chocolate Martinis.

It is time to see people you haven't seen since the last conference.

It is time to meet the people you are only on Facebook with.

It is time to make new storytelling acquaintances and check-in with old ones. 

Most importantly....It is time to learn from some wonderful tellers.

I'm going to get a chance to take a Master Class with Charlotte Blake Alston on Thursday the 25th. 

Carrie Sue Ayvar is going to spill the beans on working with the tiniest audience members.  

Priscilla Howe is going to talk about using storytelling to teach writing. Ever wondered about that? Come and see!

I'm going to be there too!

Hope to see you there!

DW

A Mixed Bag of Failure, Confusion, Success and Storytelling: Day 3

I am a professional communicator. That means I work hard to try to be understood.

I fail at this often, but I work at it.

Someday I am going to be so good at communicating that even people who have been in meetings with me will understand what I said as well as what I meant.


Looking back on this residency, I realize the first and most evident fact: The kids were fine, I'm the one who needed to adjust!

 I went in blinder than I knew, encountered something I didn't understand, and went so far into my own head I could see things coming at me through the back side of my skull.

This is a common failing of mine.

My third day of this three-day residency started off a little tentatively.

The librarian asked me if I could tell a story to the third block of kids.

I told her that since it was my last day I would definitely be telling to all of the classes. She looked relieved.

I had no idea why, but it felt a bit shady. I had enough on my plate and decided I didn't want to know.

The first two classes of the morning played the Freeze Game. We had a good time, and then I told them stories. Did I spark some imagination? Did I give the kids ideas for writing? Did I accomplish anything other than getting them to pay attention to their little wiggly bodies and start focusing on the images they were creating in their heads?

I have no idea.

The first class demanded to hear The Ghost with One Black Eye. They'd heard it in the fall, but they were determined, so I told it again.

The second class also played the Freeze game. They didn't go as far into the exercise, and they were not as attentive to the whole "These are the parts of a story" discussion we had before the exercise. This class got Red, Red Lips as a tale.

The third class of the day is when things went off the rails.

I decided to go back and see if this class could do The Good Thing/Bad Thing story work. It did not go well. I put the kids into small groups instead of two big groups to work with the teachers. The small groups had all sorts of problems, the kids could not organize this game by themselves. It was a mess. I pulled them out of it and moved onto the stories.

I should have listened to my instincts instead of allowing one particular teacher to help me sabotage myself. You'd think I would learn, but sometimes you gleefully take the poisoned apple and stuff it in your face.

Another fault, not listening to thirty years of experience.

Taily Po

I spoke to the teacher who suggested the small group idea. She was upset. She felt like I was asking the kids to do things beyond their capabilities. She didn't expect that they were going to be doing the things they were doing. This residency was not what she expected at all. She was frustrated.

I was really surprised by her reaction.

Well, by putting the kids into smaller groups, it wasn't effective. I should have just moved on to the Freeze Game.

After I pulled the kids out of the exercise, I talked about writing, told them Taily-Po, and sent them off to class.

Fourth block went fine. The teachers worked with the kids on the story game, we never got to the Freeze Game, and by the end, despite one teacher demanding things "make sense" in a "reality" way - I think she was a bit unimpressed with the shark who was also a Kung-Fu master. I was pretty sure this seven-year-old wasn't the first kid to come up with that idea and ten seconds of Googling after I got home proved that to be true - but I just laughed and rolled with it in class, and the story went on from there. I think she let it go a little more after that.

I talked a bit about the books, and then I told them Barney McCabe, which they loved.

After the last class, and the mixed bag day, the librarian admitted that the poison apple teacher from the third block was extremely disappointed. She'd sent a red hot meltdown email. She thought there was going to be more storytelling and less of this teaching about language stuff.

What did she expect?

I have no idea.

Did she think I was going to sit in the library for three days and tell stories for an hour at a time?

No idea.

What did she think was going to happen?

I have no idea.

Like I said: I am a professional communicator.

 

The librarian also told me that one of the teachers from the fourth block had seen the email from the third block teacher, and she did not agree.

The fourth block teacher expected exactly what she got. This is what I said I was going to do. This is what the material I sent said I was going to do. This is what they wanted. She was quite happy with the experience.

The teacher from the fourth block wanted me to know that not everyone shared the sentiment that there was going to be hours and hours of storytelling.

Like I said: I am a professional communicator.

Watch, the third block teacher will be the only one to fill out the survey for the arts council and then I'll be in trouble in Wake County.

Sigh.

This is why I don't like teaching residencies.


Partners in education range from fabulous to antagonistic. I've run the gamut over the last thirty years, which is why I don't often go into the classroom anymore. I have worked with teachers who love the exercises, teachers who hate them, teachers who don't understand how the work helps, teachers who implement the ideas immediately, teachers who think language work like this is a waste of time, teachers who don't think their kids are capable, teachers who wish they could teach like this all of the time, and teachers who hate every single minute of it.

The stress on all sides is just unbelievable.

If I wanted that much stress, I'd get a desk job.

There are artists who are so much better at this than I am...Looking at you, Sherry, Arianna, and Carrie Sue.


I hope I remember this little episode the next time The David says, "Hey, I think these people want a residency!"

Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you ought to do it. I do not have any passion for teaching at this point in my career.

It is time for me to stop doing it...For everyone's sake.

Life takes you where it takes you. Own up to it and avoid making yourself miserable!

Happy Telling!

The Search For Imagination - Day 1
Digging For Buried Treasure: Day 2
A Mixed Bag of Failure, Confusion,Success  and storytelling: Day 3

In Residence at Stoneviille Elementary School: You Want Me To Work With What Age?

Stoneville, NC

This week I am in residence in Stoneville, NC. This means that I am teaching all week at Stoneville Elementary school.

This means I have four classes a day. In some residencies, I get a core class, or I work with a single grade level.

I've got some fun residencies in my toolkit for grades three through twelve

 I have one about humans needing to leave the earth because it is dying. The residency is designed to get students to study the solar system, consider alternative energy, visualize technologies that do not exist, work together in small groups, research current technologies that are being considered for space exploration, as well as lots of arts and creative drama work.

I went into the classroom, explained who I was and what I was doing there. When I started the creative drama element of the residency by telling the group of fourth graders they were the last, best defense against the destruction of the world, about three quarters of the kids thought I was undercover from NASA. Some of them were pretty freaked out about it. The next day I had to explain once more that it was a creative drama experience. Despite realizing I really was not sent from NASA, the kids took the activity very seriously. All of the classes had a great time.



Basically, each class was divided into small groups, and each group came up with plans to evacuate the earth. I was cool with any plan they could concoct, and we would create the technology to make it work no matter how far fetched.

The students spent three days planning our escape. I came in on the fourth day, told them that there was bad news. Time was shorter than we knew. Not everyone could get off of the planet. A representative from each group came up and drew a slip of paper out of a bag. The slips with nothing on them meant the group got to leave, but the ones with red lines across them had to stay on the planet. We didn't have the resources to evacuate them. The groups that were going to be left behind were extremely bummed. There were some tears. We bucked up, however, and began to consider how to proceed.

Four days into a five day residency,  one or two groups in each room had to scrap all of their plans and begin to see if they could figure out a way to stay on the planet, and survive. On the fifth day, we spent most of our time in the evacuation stage, except for the abandoned groups...they threw themselves into saving our planet with such energy and fervor, that their ideas were extremely cool. The students participated in guided visualizations, drew pictures, and described the systems they designed.

The teachers had pulled books about the solar system earlier in the year, but nobody looked at them twice. That week, the books made the rounds in the rooms as student groups tried to pick a planet on which to live, and create life support systems to deal with the various drawbacks of their orbits, atmospheres, and proximity to the sun. The kids had a blast, and if it encouraged even one of them to think seriously about physics, the universe, science of any kind or alternative fuel sources...then it was worth it. If not, then it was still a blast and we got all sorts of arts impact out of it.

Ellis Island

I also run an involved five day residency about Ellis Island. A version of that residency can be found in the wonderful book by Sherry Norfolk and Jane Stenson entitled Storytelling in the Social Studies Classroom.

I have one residency on the start of the revolutionary war. I also teach a variety of writing residencies that are designed to help students with descriptive writing, and I've taught fantasy writing residencies as well.

Still and all, it is not my favorite way to spend a week.

Stoneville Elementary

This week I am in residence in Stoneville, NC.  No matter how long I do this job, there is always something new!

I have never quite done a residency like this. I am visiting every single class in the school once, and then I have a show at the end of the week. I am not seeing any class more than once! How can you build anything? You can't. You just offer up a sampling. It is not very satisfying, but I get why they want to do it this way. It allows for more arts exposure for every kid in the school.

This means I have to work with Kindergarten and First Grade. There are few things that can make my heart stop beating as quickly as knowing I have to spend an hour in a Kindergarten or first grade class.

I have no idea what you are supposed to do with little bitty kids in a classroom! I can tell stories to them all day long, but teaching them?  Just kill me now.

I don't know what people did about this sort of conundrum before the internet, luckily, I don't have that challenge. I had some ideas about what I might try that seemed a bit out there, so I reached out to our storytelling community online and asked, "what do I do?"

Our very supportive storytelling community was happy to offer up some ideas and encouragement. I finished my final classes with K and 1 today, and they were great.

What did I do?

Well, I told a version of goldilocks where she is a really naughty person. We played it in drama space, acting out the story, and then we talked about story structure.



Luckily, this school has done a great deal of work helping students with story structure. This means they already know the beginning, middle, end organization of a tale. We looked at what images or ideas go in each part of the story. The part of the story they had the most trouble with was Resolution, but they got the hang of it.

With the Kindergarteners, I also played the Button Factory. This is how I learned it.

Hi! My name is Joe!
(The children repeat this line.)
And I work in a Button Factory!
(Repeat)
I have a house!
(Repeat)
And a dog!
(Repeat)
And a family!
(Repeat)
One Day, my boss came up to me.
(Repeat)
He said, "Joe are ya busy?"
(Repeat)
I said, "No."
(Repeat)
So he said, "Work with your right hand."

What happens here is I start making big circles with my right hand.

source

We go through the chorus again, and after Joe says 'no', the boss says, "Work With Your Left Hand"

The rest of the instructions are added onto the hand movements
Work with your right leg (Bring that leg up and down)
Work with your left leg (March)
Work with your bottom (wiggle while you march and move your hands)
Work with your nose! (Move your head back and forth or all around while you do the other movements)

At the end of this last chorus when the boss says, "Joe, are ya busy?" you say 'YES!"

Afterwards, we went through the button factory using our story structure chart, and focused on how that story broke down into characters, setting, a problem that vaults the character into action and then the resolution of the action.

The Monarch Butterfly

Two of my  kindergartens and one of my first grades were immersion classes, and so I broke out La Mariposa (the butterfly), a story I learned from Carrie Sue Ayvar.

Bilingual storytelling is fun! The kids who spoke Spanish enjoyed knowing what was happening a half step before their English speaking peers. All in all, it was a great time.

Tomorrow I am seeing all of the second graders at the same time, and then I have a show.

I'm in residence in Stoneville, NC. I'm learning so much about being in the classroom, managing kids, and gauging how they are doing.

I am recalling why I would be a terrible classroom teacher.

I am enjoying playing with the kids. I'm enjoying watching the kids focus on improving their concentration and visualization skills. I'm enjoying the teachers as they watch the process and make notes about follow up after I'm done.

It is good to do this every now and then as I write and think about brain function, but as much fun as I am having....I'm looking forward to being done tomorrow!


Happy Tell/Teaching!

Who Is Looking For You? What Will They Find?

I realized I needed a website a long time ago. I was really pleased when I had the first one designed, and we actually put a bid out on a tech site to get my latest one done by a real live graphic arts studio.

In fact, that company did all of the PR so that my press packet, stationary, and website all had the same graphic quality and images.

Well worth the expense. I thought that was all I'd need to do. Heaven's above but I was wrong!

That did not make me excited to do anything else!

 I had zero interest in writing a blog.

In fact, When Sue O'halloran first suggested that I do it, I thought, 'no way'.

I didn't want a Facebook Page, and put off getting one until a few years ago.

I didn't want a You Tube Channel, but I have one...I don't post much there, but that will change this year.

I don't want to do an original 'show' for my YouTube Channel, but I will be putting the thing together, and if it goes well, I will be marketing the heck out of it by fall.

I didn't want to have a Twitter account. I have one all the same. You can follow me  on Twitter @dlwstoryteller. I still don't really get tweeting, and I'm not one hundred percent sure how the whole thing works, but I'm in there like everybody else!


I even joined Linkedin, but I'm not one hundred percent sure what to do with that either. Though, I'm happy to connect with you over there!


There are, in fact, a whole host of things that I don't find particularly lovely about the maintenance of my on-line persona, but, if I want to work, these are important things.

All of this on-line stuff started because of an epiphany I had some years ago.

There was lots of footage on youtube and in other places of me, but I didn't put any of it on-line, had no way to encourage or discourage people from finding it, and none of it was catalogued in any way shape or form.





Then, there are all of the random pictures, the on purpose pictures, and the 'Good Heavens I hope nobody ever sees that one' pictures.

 I wanted to make sure that if someone were looking for me, they found the information I wanted most prominent, and not the work of someone who was standing a quarter mile from the event while recording the backs of half the audiences' heads.



I decided that the only way to make sure I was putting my best foot forwards was to take control of my various on-line bits, and combine them into something that helped me funnel people and traffic to things that helped my career.

In the last couple of years I've realized I need to get into some more video posting online. My learning curve for this is horrible, but, I will figure it out with tutorials and the occasional mocking laughter of my children as they say things like, 'Just click this, mom'.

Luckily, there are new videos coming online all of the time, and that helps, but I still need to get my own stuff out there.

This newest piece is from Kentucky and is part of their PBS Learning Media. It is called A World of Stories.  I'm doing Anansi and the Hat Shaking Dance.

Those stories are going to become part of my marketing strategy going forward into the year. There are some good ones by Megan Hicks, Carrie Sue Ayvar, Dan Kedding and Mary Hamilton, so, if you have a moment, go and give it a look!




So, here is the question: When someone is looking for you...what do they see? What sites come up first? What links will they encounter? Where does Google send them? What is the overall impression people get of you when they search for you online?

That's why I write the blog.
That's why I have a Youtube Channel.
That's why I tweet.
That's why I'm on Linkedin.
That's why I'm working on a short video series.
That's why I post on Facebook.
That's why I market all of my preferred links to schools in my online marketing material.

Driving traffic to my favorite sites instead of hoping for the best is my on-line marketing strategy.

It requires constant upkeep.

What is your on-line marketing strategy?

What are your potential employers and/or fans seeing when they look for you?

Are you leading that search, or are you being carried along by it like a cork in a river?

Let 2016 be the year you take control if you are still being moved by the current.

Happy Marketing!

Scary Stories Anyone?: Hauntingly Good Stuff

Well, it is that time again.  Time to break out the spooky tales!

 Therefore it must be time for me to break out the annual spooky story post.

Last year I wrote about what you might want to consider telling to kids.

Just In Time For Halloween: Telling Spooky Tales 2.0

I love a good scary story.  In fact, it is my favorite kind of tale.  Edgar Allen Poe was one of my favorite authors when I was a kid.  I find scary stories delicious when told well.  I like a good jump, and I like to have a good shiver.

Now, let's be clear about this...I don't like scary movies all that much.  Most of the movies that are supposed to be scary are disgusting, and about sensationalism and less about story.

Road Train movie

I also love tales that I don't see coming.  I love sitting in an audience and watching something uncomfortable and creepy unfold through language.  

Carry Sue Ayvar told the chilling tale of Fellipa to a car full of rapt tellers on our way back to our lodgings from the Haunting in the Hills Festival.  The way she had the Bruja Madre  (bruja is witch, and you pronounce it brew-ha) say 'Fellipa' made my spine tingle.  It was very cool.

It was even cooler to realize that the base of this story she knew from Mexico had a core from a Baba Yaga tale from Russia.

Tried to put a source in for this one, but the
site where this picture is cached has a huge
alert on it!  Just had my computer diagnosed!
Enjoy the picture, but don't head to the site.

source

Baba Yaga lives in a house which walks around on chicken legs, her gate is decorated with skulls, and she is sometimes depicted with iron teeth.  I absolutely love witch stories.  If you have a chance to hear Carrie Sue tell Fellipa....take it!

One of my new favorite stories to tell is the Boo Hag.

source

I've known this story for some time, but only began telling it last year.  I tell it to sixth grade and older.  At the very end of the tale, the Boo Hag is caught without her skin, and she flies out over the swamp in a vain effort to find some place to hide.  Unfortunately, the early morning light strikes her true form and she explodes in mid-air.  The sixth graders often break into spontaneous applause when the Boo Hag is destroyed.


I love witches.  They are my favorite type of scary thing.  When I was a kid I always wanted to be one because they are so powerful.  I wanted magic at my fingertips, and the will to use that power.  I was always a little annoyed that they used their power for evil since I could see so much potential to do amazing things.  Still, every performer knows that it is always way more fun to play the evil character than the good one

Every Halloween

It goes without saying that I have gotten into trouble on numerous occasions with ghosty type stories.  Yes, I've had unhappy phone calls, and parents who demanded to know why I told this or that story.  Luckily, all of this is in my young, impetuous past...so far.  It is October, so there is still time for me to get some of these grumpy calls.

I told Mr. Fox to a group of students almost a decade ago, and the staff and kids loved it, but one of the parents who got the kid version of the tale lost her mind.  Sigh, what are you going to do?

That has not deterred me.  Kids love these tales.  These stories are part of our fascination with the darkness, the unknown, and the things that go bump in the night.  We tell them in a place where kids can go into the darkness, and then come out safe on the other side.  Scary stories are a rite of passage at sleep overs and campfires.  What I find is that there are ways to present them so that they are the fun, spine tingling events they are supposed to be.   In the face of being one phone call away from a ticked off adult, I persevere!


So, I tell spooky tales, witch stories, and a zombie story or two.  Here are the rules of thumb I follow for telling spooky stories to school aged audiences.


1.  Always ask if it is all right.   I'm talking about the administration, not the students.   Just because the students are in eighth grade, does not mean that the community into which you've come is going to think that their precious children can handle something scary.

2.  I always tell the students that the story is kind of scary, medium scary, or very scary.  I have this same rule for hot sauce.  It allows the listener to decide how much they want to participate in the telling, or if they just want to sit there with their fingers in their ears and their eyes shut.

3.  I make sure there is some levity in the tale to cut the fear factor.  I do this so that the kids can release the pressure.  If you give them a place where they can laugh, it lets them decide just how much tension they want to hold in their bodies.  If they are really intense, and they murmur, then you just keep going, if they pierce the bubble and laugh uproariously, then, you know they needed a break.

4.  I try to always make sure that the story is only as scary as the most terrified person in the audience.  I haven't always done this, and it makes for a terrible experience for some kids.  If I see that there are lots of group clusters clutching ,or someone who looks like they need a break, I ease off the scary.  Luckily, lots of scary stuff is just technique, and you can decide how you turn the phrase, how much drippy, squishy, growly bits you want to add, or adjust the tone of your voice, or the rapidity at which you are speaking.


5.  I often let kids vote about what kind of story they want.  Some kids do not want scary tales.  If they tell you they don't want one...listen!  For a group of kids who don't want a scary tale, then even the least scary thing is uncomfortable to them.

Here is the rub for all of it....

6.  Just because the kids and administrators have a good time with the stories, doesn't mean some parent isn't going to call and freak out about the version the kid tells when they get home!

"But, Donna," you might ask, "Why would you continue with this when it could potentially get you in trouble?"

Last week I was at a school in Apex, NC.  I told the 6th grade Morgan and the Pot of Brains, and the Boo Hag.  Between my second and third set of the day, I had a break, so I went into the library.  One of the women passing through the room stopped and stared at me, and then she walked over to where I was sitting.

"Are you the storyteller?"  She had a clipboard and a broad smile.

"Yes."

"I just want to tell you, I am the speech therapist.  I had a kid right after your set for the sixth grade.  He stutters, and he was so excited when he came to me, he couldn't talk.  He was stuttering like crazy.  Then, I got him to calm down and use his techniques.  Do you know, he told me both of your stories with so much detail and so much passion, and he didn't stutter hardly at all.  Normally he just gives me bare bones descriptions because he doesn't like to talk.  I want to thank you for making him love language so much today that he didn't want to stop talking."

So, get out there and have fun with the spine tinglers, the jump tales, the suspenseful stories, and most especially, those lovely, powerful witches!

Happy Spooking!

Storytelling And Education...Sherry Norfolk is on Deck

The 2015-2016 season has begun!  The schools are open and lots of little tykes and big tykes are back in the classrooms where knowledge will rain down upon them, and if they are lucky, not all of it will slide off and be washed away by the janitors at the end of the day.

I had a rousing week last week in Kentucky and Tennessee working with the Haunting in the Hills Ghost Story Festival.  We filmed a ghost story special for KET, and worked in schools the week before the haunting on Saturday Night!  Mary Hamilton was our sponsor, guide, guru and all around amazing hostess  for the event.  She was brilliant.  if she does this role again next year, then whoever she asks should jump at it.  It was a great amount of fun!

P.S., the next time you are invited to the Wright/Hamilton household for dinner, request that Charles make Meatloaf.  You won't be sorry.

I am not what you'd call a rustic type of girl.......

All week, the park rangers escorted us through the area and introduced us at the schools.  The kids were fun, and loved storytelling.

We stayed in cabins on Pickett State Park.  Beautiful.

One night, right before I went to sleep, I saw a cave cricket in my room, and no husband in sight to capture the little guy and escort him to safety.  I just put my house shoes up on the dresser, as well as my tennis shoes, my skeletoes, and every other bag, purse or container I owned.  I gave him the floor.

I did a short hike with Megan Hicks, and wondered the entire time why people do it for fun.  I did see the Twin Arches.  Megan thought I was going to pass out half the time we were hiking.  The scenery was pretty, though.

Had great sets with Dan Kedding, Megan Hicks, and Carrie Sue Ayvar.  (I was sitting here for a few minutes racking my brain to remember who the fourth teller might have been, since there were four tellers on the bill, only to realize that I was the fourth teller.  Sometimes....)

One Night, I could hear something banging against the ceiling and the curtains, but couldn't locate what it might be.  Every time I turned on the light, the thing would vanish.  Finally, turned on the light to see a giant moth ghost past the lamp.  Freaked me out.  I opened the door and turned on the hall light for twenty minutes, but my noisy guest would not leave.  Finally, I just turned out the light and slept as much as I could while hearing something bump against the ceiling, curtains and glass every twenty minutes or so.

Saturday night during the ghost stories, twenty minutes into a thirty minute story, a snake made an appearance.  The snake was uninvited, freaked out the people closest to the stage, and proceeded to climb the hay bales that were in front of the stage as decoration.  I tried to ignore it, but the thing was agitated, ended up climbing all the way up on stage with me, and hiding behind the speakers.  I was going to let it be, but the head ranger came up on the stage informed me quietly it was a copperhead, therefore poisonous, and as a barefoot storyteller, I really needed to get off the stage.

Upstaged by nature.  

The rangers were terrific, and saved the day while being both polite and forceful.  I have decided that if I am ever in trouble, I totally want the Park Rangers to be the people I call.  Do I live near a national park?  No.  Do I still want Park Rangers to respond to my emergency?  Yes.

From now on, perhaps I will do my camping at the Hilton as the good lord intended.



This weekend I will be playing the Heart of NC Storytelling Festival in Greensboro.  I know it will be a fun if wet event, since it will be raining for the next couple of days.  If you are in the area, come out and play.  It will be dry and fun.




Next week I have another guest blogger.  She's one of my favorites.

Sherry Norfolk

I spend a lot of time buried in reading and research about using storytelling in education...not as much as Sherry Norfolk.

Sherry is one of the wells I go to draw from when I have a question.  If I need some advice about storytelling in classrooms or in education in general, she is a great source.

The kind of odd thing about Sherry is I have no idea when I met her.  Somehow, I feel like I've always just known her, but that can't be right.  She sort of slid right into my life, I looked up and she was just always there.  Perhaps it is because I knew her as an educator and writer, long before I ever saw her tell stories.

Her work in education and storytelling has been a gift to me as a teaching artist.  I am always honored when she agrees to do a little writing for me on the side, and her insights make me feel smarter.

She knows how to get underneath storytelling and education better than almost anyone else I've ever met, and she can tell a wonderful story as well.

Next week she is going to be featured in this space talking about Universal Design for Learning.  Yeah, I hadn't heard much about this before I read her piece.  Very cool stuff.

If you don't know Sherry's work, here is a brief bio:

Sherry Norfolk is an award-winning, internationally-acclaimed storyteller, teaching artist, and author, performing and leading residencies and professional development workshops across the United States and SE Asia. She was a presenter at the 2014 Kennedy Center-VSA Intersections Conference, “Leveling the Playing Field: Storytelling in the Special Needs Classroom,” and for the 2015 Kennedy Center-VSA webinar, “Teach Them to Fly: How Storytelling Gives Primary-age Children with Special Needs Their Wings.”   www.sherrynorfolk.com

Stop in next week!

Happy Teaching.