Story Arts/Storytelling Activities & Lesson Ideas

Reviewed By Linda Kay

Story Arts/Storytelling Activities and Lesson Ideas is a website developed by author/storyteller, Heather Forest. In this site, she gives an annotated list of twenty different activities to use with students in a library setting. Even though this site was developed in 2000, the activities are timeless. Therefore, they are still quite useful for an elementary library. One specific activity included in the website is Proverbs: Wisdom Tales Without the Plot. To use this activity she suggests having students choose a familiar proverb and create a story that carries that thought. To aid the librarian use this activity, she gives selected proverbs from her book, Wisdom Tales From Around the World. Forest gives examples from all over the world, so the librarian/teacher could use this when working with any part of the world. For example, she gave the following proverbs: The pot calls the kettle black. (United States) The sieve says to the needle: You have a hole in your tail. (Pakistan) Another interesting activity is The Autobiography of Anything. To use this activity the librarian gathers a group of items and has the students create a story about one of the items. Forest suggests using objects such as a rubber band, a paper clip, and a pen. This activity gives the teacher/librarian the opportunity to let the students use their imagination and see that everyone has a good story to tell. The most useful portion of the website is the Plot Structure Scenarios devised by Heather Forest Copyright © 2000. In this section she gives the different parts of a plot including characters, setting, problem, inner traits, solution, conclusion and end. Forest gives examples under each of these parts of the plot for students to choose. By having things written out, it will aid the students in writing their own stories. The site also lists other storytelling activity sites for students and teachers to get more ideas. By the way the activities were written, Forest seemed willing to have people contact her even though she gave no e-mail or physical address. This website is a good start for getting students involved in the storytelling process.