Thanks to Sugga Mama for posting about Story Starters: Helping Children Write Like They’ve Never Written Before, by Karen Andreola, earlier this week. That reminded me of narration, which is something I have been thinking about often, so I pulled out A Charlotte Mason Companion, also by Karen Andreola, to see if there was anything in there that might be useful for my purposes. (Here’s a great article on narration: Narration: Tapping into the “Talking Resource”.) Narration has always worked well for us, but, for some reason, I get away from it and veer off into more school-at-home methods.
Sometimes I forget that “we are finishing children, not workbooks” [- Raymond and Dorothy Moore, who are now both with the Lord], and crack the whip in a way that is unbecoming a homeschool Mom. That is to say that my kids have been feeling like all of life is drudgery.
Yesterday, as I was reading Sugga Mama’s post, I remembered an idea I had to give my kids a boost in several areas all at once. I decided right then to devote some serious time developing that idea, especially now that I actually have ambition, which I have not had for several years. (Thank you, God, for making me aware of the gluten issue!)
This afternoon while I was making dinner, I decided to give the boys an assignment just to see what would happen. I told them that I wanted them to tell me a story. They had 30 minutes to either make up a story, or to refresh their memories about a story they had read or heard, and I wanted them to tell the rest of us that story. I told them they needed to take between 5 and 10 minutes. They all jumped on that! At first they asked all kinds of questions. They weren’t sure exactly what I was asking. It has been such a long time since we’ve used our imaginations that they were dumbfounded, I think. I told them that the point was not to speak perfectly or to get the story exactly right, but to focus on the telling of the thing. I told them that I wanted them to focus on sticking with the story, making eye contact with the rest of us, and making their body language relevant, ex) watch the fidgeting, don’t flail if flailing isn’t related to the story, use motions if they would be helpful.
Homer headed to the living room and then, after being harassed by Homer, Dub headed to the Man Room, and the Little Guy came into the kitchen, where I was cooking dinner. Each of them came to me with questions at least twice before the end of the 30 minutes, and all of them were anticipating the “performance”. I wondered if I should have a story of my own ready to go in case they needed to be primed, so I thought about which childhood stories were most familiar. I came up with one and started making a mental outline as I burned fried pork chops and nuked potatoes.
My Dad had a huge record collection when I was a kid. My favorites were the story records. He had Sleeping Beauty, Chopin, and Rumplestiltskin. My favorite of those was Rumplestiltskin. I decided to try to abbreviate that story and tell it to the boys if needed.
By the time the 30 minutes was up, the boys were ready to tell their stories. Each of them went back and forth between wanting to go first and wanting someone else to do it, so, after we ate dinner and cleaned up, they drew numbers from a hat. Gabe was to go first. Gabe likes to write and illustrate stories. He has written three books and had chosen to use one of those for his story.
When we finally went into the living room, and the rest of us got settled, Gabe was pretty nervous. His start was halting, and he wasn’t sure where to start. He finally got going, but then he fell apart. I felt sorry for the poor little feller, so I said, “Hey, how about if I do my story so you can see what I’m asking you to do?”
So I did my story. That took about 15 minutes, for which I would’ve lost points if I had been graded.
I finally finished and sat down, and it was Gabe’s turn again. He went back up to our stage area and began again. He started to fall apart, but I said, “It’s okay. You’re doing fine. Keep going. You can do it.” He plodded ahead and eventually lightened up a little. He cried when he sat down, but I made Homer hurry up and get started. He has never done anything like this before either, so he was a little nervous, but he started laughing and couldn’t stop, so that broke the tension and made Gabe feel better. Homer did such a good job, once he stopped laughing! He used some things he learned in his writing class last year and gave a well prepared speech, considering he only had 30 minutes to pull it together. And he was so funny!
When Dub’s turn finally came around, after Homer’s 20 minute comedy routine!!, we had more laughs! He did a baseball story from the perspective of a Southern announcer. It was so funny!
All three boys stayed on topic, for the most part, and got their stories across. I am impressed with how much thought Homer and Dub put into theirs. Gabe had thought his through, but because he had never told one of his stories out loud and had never really been the storyteller, he got somewhat hung up on the things I had told them I’d be noticing, but, by the time all three had finished their presentations, they were ready to go another round! Gabe made a dramatic turn around, let me tell ya! He went from timid to quite dramatic! We had so much fun! 
Story Starters was the story starter at our house today. I am really glad Sugga Mama brought it up. I’m not sure we would’ve had as much fun today if my train of thought hadn’t been sparked by her post. Thanks, Sugga Mama! I look forward to hearing how the book works out for your kids. 
