During a Telling Bee you lead your students through a process of story collecting, storytelling, writing, and book publishing. Students gain an appreciation?for the spoken word, skills as listeners and tellers, and the inter-cultural understanding that comes when people share their stories. Although the Bee focuses on the spoken word, writing and book-publishing are also an important part of the project.
1) Let the parents know: Teachers (or the Planning Committee) should notify the parents that students will be doing a Telling Bee in the school. Reassure families that PRIVACY WILL BE RESPECTED AT ALL TIMES. No story will be retold or published without parental/guardian consent. The Telling Bee is a celebration of storytelling, from folktales to family lore. It is a chance for children to develop their listening, memory, and speaking skills.
2) Create a Talking Stick: This is an ancient storytelling custom found around the world where an object is used to honour the storyteller and the listeners. In Canadian parliamentary tradition, for example, the Speaker of the House holds a mace. The students can decorate the classroom stick with beads, feathers, ribbons, paint, special objects, writing, images, etc. The custom is that whoever holds the Talking Stick has the power to speak to the community. It is a symbol of the respect the listeners have for the storyteller, and of the respect the teller has for the community. It also helps the shy kids take the risk of telling their stories.
3) Finding your stories: Brainstorm a list of questions the students can use for collecting stories. Telling Bee stories come from word-of-mouth sources: family tellers, friends, neighbours, camp counsellors. Students must have permission to retell a story in class. Here are twelve questions for starting the story quest.
- Have you ever known a true-life hero?
- Did you ever get in trouble as a kid?
- Did you ever eat something weird? What food(s) or eating occasions were special to the family?
- Did you ever move to a new home? What surprised you there? What did you miss most from your old home?
- Did you ever know an unusual animal?
- Did our family survive war or other disasters? How?
- Have you ever had a supernatural or ghostly experience?
- What was I famous for as a baby?
- Did you (or I) ever get stitches?
- Were you (or I) ever lost? How did you get found?
- Which ancestor do you think of when you need help with a big decision? Why?
- Is there a story behind the names in our family?
Can you think of more questions to add to the list?
Special note for kindergarten teachers: Students in junior and senior kindergarten can and will tell whatever story they want. They bring their own imagination to the Telling Bee instead of stories they've heard. You may suggest themes — e.g., favourite foods, special gifts, losing teeth, holidays, trips — to focus the youngest tellers.
4) Make a time and place for storytelling: Set up a schedule of regular storytelling sessions. Students should know what day they'll be expected to tell their tale(s). Give students more than one chance – they get better the more they try! Arrange the chairs and lights to make a special place in class for the storytelling to happen.
5) Storytelling is fun: It may be hard and challenging, but it should also be fun for the students. Make the Telling Bee a positive, "no-fail" experience. The focus isn't on performance but on the stories themselves. Storytelling is an ancient art, and even very shy people have excelled at it. After a child tells his/her story, other students may have questions about the five "W's" — who, what, where, why, when — of the tale. You can model this questioning. Children's stories are often brief, especially in the beginning of a Telling Bee. You can draw out some of the story's details with your questions.
6) Write it down: Students pick a story from the ones they've told. They write a first draft. This can be edited by you and their classmates. When they're ready to write a final draft, they should use the Telling Bee Story Sheet. Edit for punctuation and spelling. Students bring their stories home for a parental/guardian OK.
7) A chapter of stories: Your students will each have a story in the classroom chapter of the Telling Bee Book. Please put in one your own stories too! Hand over the chapter to the Planning Committee in the form they require (disk or manuscript). Have the kids illustrate the chapter if there's room in the book for graphics.
Those are the basics for a successful Telling Bee. If the Planning Committee does a book launch/storytelling event to celebrate the publication of the Telling Bee book, you may want to
- Prepare a display where the students honour the people they have collected their stories from;
- Choose some students for a storytelling concert;
- Ensure that the students come to the launch?feeling and acting like authors (they should bring pens to sign copies for each other and their parents).