Any folktale, poem, or even a song is appreciated.
Bring your scariest stories to tell!
Storytelling at the Kensington Day of the Book Festival
The Twinbrook Tellers are the performing group of the Dogwood Dogs 4H Club. Ages 8–18, club members gather to tell tales once each month of the school year on Sunday from 4-6pm. The Twinbrook Tellers tell tales at local libraries, senior homes, and area festivals including the Montgomery County Harvest Festival, the Kensington Day of the Book, the FSGW MidWinter MiniFest and the Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park. For information, contact group leader Eve Burton at ebnineteen@hotmail.com
Here are some tips on how to learn to tell a story:
Margaret Chatham sharing her storytelling with The Twinbrook Tellers
Come to swaps and storytelling events as often as you can. Listen to as many different storytellers as you can. In person is best, but recordings are good, too.
Start by learning short, narrative poems with a strong rhythm and rhyme. (A.A. Milne and Shel Silverstein are two good choices) Almost anyone can learn a short poem. Almost anyone can get up the nerve to tell a 1-minute poem to others.
Once you’ve learned to tell something, anything, tell it to anyone who will listen.
For your first story, try a short, short, short folktale such as an Aesop’s Fable.
Then try a longer folktale in which the use of language isn’t the most important feature. Learn the first paragraph and the last paragraph by heart. Get to know the basic plot elements well enough that you can tell them, but don’t worry about telling them exactly. Use your own words, words with which you are comfortable. If you are an auditory learner, try taping yourself telling the story, and listen to the tape. Then tell along with the tape. If you are more visual, try making a list of the key events in the story, and learn them, event by event. Some people like to make pictures of the events.
Practice telling your story as often as you can, to anyone who will listen. Some young storytellers tell stories to their stuffed animals. Some people tell to their mirrors.
By this point, you’ll know how to learn a simple story.
If you're working on a literary story in which the words are important, learn the end of the story first; then the beginning; then the middle. Then put it all together.
The more you listen to other people tell stories and the more you tell them yourself, the better you’ll get.
Come have fun with us and share your stories or just listen.
