Guidelines
for Storytellers
How to select
a story to tell
1. Read
MANY stories.
2. Choose
one story you really like. It should be one that you’d enjoy telling many
times.
3. Evaluate
the story for “learnability.”
4. Evaluate
the story for “tellability.”
5. Consider
its appropriateness for your intended audience.
6. Think
about what audio-visual (AV) media, if any, might be appropriate. (Puppets, felt
board, overhead projector, pre-recorded narration, sound effects, etc.)
Learnability
1. How
long is the story? Read it aloud and time yourself. If it takes more than 10
minutes, it’s probably too long for a beginning storyteller, unless you have an
exceptional memory.
2. Does
the story have patterns? Stories that repeat certain lines or themes are easier
to learn, as are stories that build on themselves. Stories that continually
change require a great deal of memorization and are therefore harder to learn.
3. Think
about whether or not you would want to learn the story word-for-word. Can it be
paraphrased? Stories that require memorization, such as rhyming stories, are
harder to learn and remember—they are also much harder to tell, because it’s
very difficult to cover up a misspoken rhyme!
Tellability
1. For
“traditional” storytelling (no Audio Visual AV media ):
a. Do
the words tell the story? Can you make the listener imagine what is happening
by your voice and body alone?
b. Think
about the movements and gestures you would use to tell the story clearly. Will
you have to change your voice to show that different characters are speaking?
Will you be able to do that?
c. Will
you have to add anything to the story, or leave anything out, to make it clear
to your audience? It is okay to change the wording of a story, but don’t change
the basic outline of the story!
2. For
storytelling with AV media:
a. What
form of media will best help you tell this story to your intended audience?
b. Will
you be able to tell the story smoothly while manipulating your materials?
c. Will
using media force you to change the story in some way? How?
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