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(2022 note: this program would later be called YoungTales)
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I have just gotten notice from the Chiaha Guild that our grant application has been approved. We asked them to sponsor Big Fibbers™ clubs at two of the elementary schools that are participating in the Big Fibbers™ Festival. If you have an idea for a business or club that might like to sponsor another school or schools, please let me know.
Our group will organize a Big Fibbers™ Club in each of several local elementary schools to encourage the performance art of storytelling and to develop creative writing skills. The meetings would include brief video clips of a professional storyteller modeling and/or explaining his craft; a local storyteller modeling with his/her own story; structured creation of “trouble” lists (story ideas) by the students; and always a few minutes of the children “telling about” their stories. These sessions will be modeled on, and will sometimes use materials from Donald Davis’s "Make It, Tell It, Write It!" storytelling/writing program.
The premise of the program is that just as speech precedes and prepares children for writing, storytelling can precede and prepare children for creative writing. Once a child has created a story he is motivated to perform it and to preserve it in writing. When I used this approach in my teaching I found it the most successful approach to public speaking and creative writing I had ever used in 32 years of teaching. The students were excited to come to the Storytelling Club and soon eager to perform their stories and then to preserve their stories on paper.
Each school will get six one-hour storytelling lessons for middle grades, as well as a copy of the wonderful Donald Davis DVD.
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