By Jennifer Munro For many years, I had the privilege of teaching eighth grade English in a school in Connecticut where the curriculum was based on Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth – and it was stirring, important stuff. We were teaching kids about life, the realities of the human condition, and the need to […]

by Sue O’Halloran In order to make curricula more relevant to the vast array of cultures represented in our classrooms, teachers and artists need to look for the “sweet spot” where four areas of learning can overlap: The core curricula for a subject The individual interests, motivations, personality, learning styles and communication styles of each

by Maureen Korte One day, before I was about to head off to University, I asked my Mother her secret to a happy marriage as she and my Father had been married for forty blissful years. She said: Never marry a man who is picky about their food. If he is picky about food, he

by Simon Brooks, © 2016 Sound is important in our job as storytellers. It is, for the most part, an oral art form for an aural audience. Obviously, this is not always the case. There are amazing storytellers who are deaf and use sign language, there are storytellers who use tell tales using a digital

By Glenda Bonin In the past two years, my storytelling repertoire has expanded to include audiences of elders – some in vigorous health, and others dealing with a variety of medical conditions and memory loss. For the most part, these audiences are associated with senior living communities or private assisted living sites. I have identified

By Cindy Rivka Marshall How do communities or organizations encourage understanding and respect of human differences? Those of us who deeply understand the potential of both story sharing and story listening have a lot to offer. I use personal storytelling as a tool for diversity work. I have strong faith in the power of story

By Mike Speller In the afterglow of the wonderful buffet published in Storytelling Magazine’s “Coming Home Laughter” edition, I am proud to say NSN chose the Professor to share his Humor Kourse at the upcoming summer conference/workshop.   So now I have plenty of material to copy, paraphrase, and claim as my own. I am joshing,

by Carolyn Stearns In the back of the closet, an old box in the attic, a jewelry box long forgotten, these are the places some of your family stories lurk. I have focused a portion of my work on unearthing these remnants of stories and fleshing them out. There are jewels of stories waiting to

by Lillian Rodrigues-Pang Twenty years ago I sat in the concrete surrounds of the mental health ward next to my brother with nothing to say. I couldn’t talk to him about the beautiful sunny day outside, about awesome surf conditions, or my nephew’s first soccer game that was coming up. All of these were unobtainable

by Doug Lipman If you’ve hung around storytelling (or acting or writing) long enough, you’ve probably heard the familiar instruction: “Show, don’t tell.” This maxim points toward a helpful idea: in order to make a scene or sentence maximally vivid for your listeners, you need to “show” what happened, rather than “tell” ABOUT what happened.