Reflection on Story Telling

1.0 Creating Stories for Children

When I started to brainstorm the story that I have to write, a million of thoughts flashed in my
mind. A vast selection of fairy tales, animal fables and also Disney cartoons appeared in rich
images in my memories. This made me wondered, what is a good story? What kind of story
can make a children remember it forever? What kind of stories had I liked most, being a child?
According to Mart (2012), children are naturally drawn to stories. Thus, this statement gave
me permission to write as freely as I wished because as long as it is a story, children will be
able to enjoy it.

Huck (1997) had once mentioned that childrens literature is the imaginative shaping of life
and thought into the forms and structures of language. To make their readings pleasurable,
I wanted to write a story that is full of imagination as children at young age are where their
imagination runs the wildest. I have used a few guidelines on the criteria of authentic
children literature listed by Smallwood (1988) to write a good story. I make sure that my story
has a clear plot with a sweet and nonetheless inspiring resolution. While writing the story, I
was careful not to make my sentences too narrative and which will result in less
sophisticated language used. I also had to be cautious on the level of difficulty for the
language in the story.

It was a true challenge to create a piece of children story. I began to salute how Roald Dahl
writes, and how he uses his imaginations to create a paradise of stories for children to hide
into when the world gets a little rough. Being a huge fan of his Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, I decided to create a story of adventure for the children. My very first acquaintance
with BBC online programme for kids, which is CBeebies production, leads me to a wonderful
cartoon series named Sarah & Duck. In the story, Sarah, the main character, believes that
umbrellas grow in rain. Inspired by the idea, I wrote a story where Sarah is a character that
is afraid of rain until one day she met a lovely umbrella in the rain.

2.0 Putting Character into Life

After I have finished writing my story, I decided to gear up for the story telling session. I know
that to have a good portrayal of the characters, I must first understand my character. Before
deciding the costume I have to wear, I need to settle down on my point of view in storytelling.
How should I tell the story, from Sarahs point of view or from a story tellers point of view?
To help the children to better relate to the story, I finally decided on making myself Sarah.
Having this decision in my mind, I started to figure out suitable costume to wear for my
character, Sarah.

In the story, Sarah hated the rain. She did not like to go out during rainy days. Therefore,
even though raincoat and rain boots were mentioned in the story earlier, I cannot wear them
first. A suitable outfit of Sarah without the raincoat and rain boots is required. Of course a
little girl has to wear skirt or dress, so I made her wear a red shirt and a black skirt. To
enhance the theme of the story, which is rain, I designed a felt art on the red shirt which
consists of an umbrella and some rain drops.

I moved on to deciding the prop I needed for the story telling. In storytelling, we are allowed
to have only one prop. For my story Sarah and the Umbrella it is easy for me to think of the
prop that I should have. It is definitely the red umbrella! My ideal umbrella is red in colour
and is a mini version of the usual umbrella we used. I found an umbrella for little kids and its
red in colour. Though it has an animal face painted on it, it is sufficient to be Sarahs little red
umbrella. It was just the right size for a primary school kid like Sarah.

The most difficult part is to find suitable rain boots for Sarah. Rain boots are not hard to find,
but a pair of red rain boots! I did not want to change the colour of my rain boots just because
there were only black and yellow boots available in shops. Instead, I bought a can of red
colour spray and worked on my yellow boots. After this one step, everything else was quite
easy to pull together. I bought a pink rain coat and attached two cats ears on it to achieve a
girlish feel. To match Sarah little girls appearance, I combed my hair into two pig tails and
highlight them with pink ribbons. And, the final look is done!

3.0 A Good Story teller

Certainly we have heard a lot of stories when we were kids. However, I am quite sure that
not many of us know the proper art for storytelling. After a few lectures on story telling
techniques, we were off to research by ourselves. From my own research, I learnt that when
we tell a story, we need to think of the emotions that the story can stimulate. Then we have
to exaggerate the expressions to make children more engrossed in the story. Is it fear, joy,
sympathy, courage, grief or anger? According to Brewster, Ellis & Girard (2004), in
storytelling, we should use gestures, mime and facial gestures to help convey the meaning.
Each one of these feelings has to be portrayed through bodily expression.

For my story, Sarah at first was a grumpy girl. She was so unhappy that it had rained non-
stop for a week and she cannot go out to play. Therefore, her first emotion was unhappy,
and perhaps a little bit of anger and frustration. In the next paragraph, she listed down things
that she doesnt like about the rain, including the colour of the clouds and also the sounds of
the thunder. We know that she was disgusted and afraid. In my story telling, I highlighted
Sarahs disgust by adding sound expressions such as Ewww and also a crinkled face to
show that she really didnt like the colour of the clouds. At the end of the story, Sarah was
really happy to find her new red umbrella. So the emotion of joy has to be distinct. For this
emotion, I spun in a circle to illustrate her feeling of happiness.

During the day for our story telling presentation, I was quite nervous. I was especially
worried when I saw a few of my classmates forgot their lines because of stage fright. It was
also the very first time that I speak in front of the audience without any notes with me. I used
to be a shy girl, and I thought making too many expressions on stage was a very
embarrassing thing to do. But after being coached by several friends, and also my will to
present the best after all the efforts I have put in for this story, I became more confident. It
was an enjoyable experience to speak in front of the audience and able to watch how their
emotions were evoked by the story. I felt as if the huge barrier between me and the public
speaking was lifted.

4.0 In the Future

In the future, I am positive that I will continue to tell stories to children and see how their little
faces turned into billions of emotions in front of my eyes. Galda and Cullinan (2002) claimed
that literature entertains and informs and it enables young people to explore and
understand their world and enriches their lives and widens their horizons and through
literature children They can explore their own feelings, shape their own values, and imagine
lives beyond the one they live. I will continue to utilise the magic of stories to teach children
in understanding the world. One day the seed of good literature might germinate in their little
souls, creating a generation of young learners that will appreciate good literature. Perhaps in
some periods of their life in the future, stories that I have told them will guide them through
the shadows, like how good stories did to me years ago when I was a kid.
References

Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2004). The primary English teachers guide. London:
Penguin. Brown, E. Using childrens literature with young learners. Retrieved January
12, 2012, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Brown=ChildrensLit.html

Fox, C. (1993). At the very edge of the forest: the influence of literature on storytelling by
children. London: Cassell.

Galda, L., & Cullinan, B. E. (2002). Cullinan and Galdas literature and the child. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Huck, C. S., Hepler, S., Hickman, J., & Kiefer, B. Z. (1997). Childrens literature in the
elementary school. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Smallwood, B. A. (1988). Using multicultural childrens literature in adult ESL classes. Digest,
National Center for ESL literacy Education.

Wright, A. Introduction in Paran, A. & Watts, E. (Eds.). (2003). Storytelling in ELT.

(Whitstable, IATEFL).