Long-term programs

Storytelling Residencies

Stories with Class

• "Start with Stories"
• "History Live!"

Coaching Residency

Conflict Resolution Residency

Coaching Residency

A professional storyteller(s) works closely with students, for at least eight sessions, guiding them in choosing, rehearsing, and finally, performing a story. Students will participate in activities to help them become better storytellers, performers and general communicators. These activities include characterization exercises, vocal training, movement/body language, role-playing, timing, and maintaining eye contact. Students will be exposed to stories from many cultures and to a variety of styles of storytelling.

Possible components for a coaching residency:

#1. The coach works closely with one to three teachers. Teachers help with the story search and rehearsals. All students participate in storytelling workshops and choose a story to learn. There are several optional outlets for performances: Student tellers can visit the classrooms of younger grades; an evening of student storytelling open to parents and the community can be held; students might perform as part of a festival.

This type of residency can take place with one professional storytelling coach or with one anchor storyteller and several visiting tellers. By being exposed to a variety of tellers, students become aware of different narrative styles. Each teller demonstrates his or her personal techniques in developing a story.

#2. The coach works with ten to fifteen students as a special assignment outside of class. At the start of the residency, a participatory workshop is held with one to three classes. Afterwards, teachers and teller decide which students will be assigned to the storytelling project. They meet with the teller weekly and perform at the end of the series.

#3. During the coaching residency, a grade level assembly performance by the storyteller may be scheduled. Each grade in the school receives at least one visit from the storyteller. The content of the stories he or she tells can be coordinated with curricula.

#4. Two schools can cooperate, sharing the cost and using the residency as an opportunity for an urban/suburban exchange, in which student storytellers travel to one another's schools to perform.

For further information and fees, contact the Connecticut Storytelling Center.

Conflict Resolution Residency

This is a participatory storytelling program for middle school students with a focus on conflict resolution. The most effective way to implement this program is in an extended series of sessions with students.

In CSC's Conflict Resolution Program, traditional folk tales and the human wisdom they hold are used to counter the violence that children are frequently exposed to on television, in video games and movies, through news media and, possibly, even in their own lives.

A professional storyteller introduces tales ­ told in a lively and entertaining style, and drawn from a variety of cultures ­ that involve people in conflict and show the choices they make as a means to resolve it. The stories both impart a sense of the values that are important in these cultures, and illustrate many ways of dealing with conflict. With follow-up activities that include role-playing and theater improvisations, students learn to express their views, hear and understand their peers' ideas, and improve their own problem solving techniques.

Stories provide a platform for students to examine their own conflicts and the problems that they face in society. Multicultural tales help them to appreciate cultural differences, and at the same time, gain insight into universal human problems. Storytelling activities instill a feeling of camaraderie in the group and ethnic pride in individuals.

In addition to the program's focus on conflict resolution, the experience of working closely with professional storytellers will spark students' interest in reading, performing, history, geography, and folk cultures.

For further information and fees contact the Connecticut Storytelling Center.