Difference between revisions of "Storytelling"

Potential applications of storytelling are:

• Breaking down barriers between multidisciplinary or multi-cultural teams
• Team or community-building exercises
• Workshop warm-ups
• Trips debriefings and review
• Project reviews
• Monitoring systems
• Entertainment and fun ^[1]

General Guidelines

Choice of the story

• Types of story:
  • Folktale, meaning a story from oral tradition;
  • Literary Tale, by a single author, made for publishing;
  • Real Life Story, from history and personal experiences.

• Characteristics of the story
  • It should be simple, with a single, clearly defined theme, and powerful;
  • It should be in response to a demand, and timed with specific opportunities;
  • It should be vivid, picturesque, have a nice style, pleasing sounds and rhythm;
  • It should provide a solution to both immediate and broader problems;
  • It should be targeted at people with the power to make decisions and change things;
  • It should play to what is already in people’s mind.

Preparation

• Read the story several times.
• Analyze the words, thinking about the pictures you want the listener to see and the mood you want to create.
• Research background and cultural meaning of the story.
• Learn the story as a whole and not in fragments, without memorizing it.
• Map out the story line:
  • Beginning: When the characters are introduced;
  • Body: In which the plot gets to the climax;
  • Resolution: Where the conflicts are solved.

• Characteristics of the narration:
  • Emphasis
  • Repetition
  • Transition
  • Pause
  • Proportion

• Tricks to keep the attention:
  • Involvement or participation of listeners;
  • Distinct changes in pace, voice or mood;
  • Unusual or unexpected twist in narrations.

Techniques

There are different techniques to conduct a storytelling session; two are illustrated below, using storytelling in different ways:

Technique 1

• Introduce the workshop and the theme for storytelling. It's important to provide the participants a context on which they can reflect and that permits them to select the story they are going to tell.
• Make participants reflect on a story and think about details of before, during and after.
• Ask participants to form pairs and to share the story they have prepared.
• Ask the participant who was listening to his/her partner's story to interview the partner and fill the Story Template as a guide, so that as much detail as possible is collected.
• Form bigger groups of two pairs, where each participant will tell the story that was previously told by the partner.
• Make participants reflect on common points and contradictions of the stories.
• Ask each small group to present their findings and conclusions to the whole group.

Technique 2

• Divide the participants in groups of 6.
• Ask the participants to think of a concrete and specific story, related to the objective of the workshop or project.
• Each participant has 90 seconds to tell his/her own story within the group.
• When everyone has finished, ask the participants to recall the story that they consider more powerful and to remember who told that story.
• Ask participants to change groups.
• Ask them to tell their story again in 20 seconds, observing how it changes and improves in telling it again.
• Repeat the task of thinking which story they liked the most and who told it.
• Create new groups and go on with the exercise, in case there are many participants.
• Ask everyone to remember the person who told the most powerful story, go to that person and put your hand on his/her shoulder. A network of people will form, revealing a few of high-impact stories.
• Ask the people who told those stories to tell them again in front of the whole group.^[2]