Storytelling With Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
The language of traditional tales is rich with symbols, metaphors, imagery and oblique meanings. There are set openings and endings. Rhythmic and repetitive refrains and repeated phrases often mark the pattern of events. These are fun to repeat and serve to strengthen the images and structure of the story in the listener's mind.

A traditional way of telling a traditional tale gives the listeners time to listen.

I include 'personal stories' when working with children:
e.g. getting children to tell about their journey to school. This I might do in the form of a 'circle time' activity with a repeated refrain and action linking the different
contributions.

The next stage is to get the children to 'retell someone else's story':
'Once upon a time Jamal was walking by the creek when he tripped and fell in' - and so on.
As stories get passed on by word of mouth they reach a wider audience, taking the story beyond the group that first heard it:
'Once upon a time there was a boy who walked by the creek and tripped and fell in' - and so on.
This is the beginning of the folk tale, often used as a way of passing on messages about behaviour and warnings of danger to the listeners.

Then there are:
legends [stories of larger than life people],
fairy tales [talking animals, people under spells, magical wishes], and
myths [stories of a people's origin and purpose, of customs and beliefs and stories of the origin of the land, the stars,the sun and moon].

Back to Jamal's story:
Working with a combination of me telling the children many folk tales from a whole range of cultures and growing' the children's own anecdotes into a collection of, e.g. Tales from the Yellow Class', the children become familiar with:
*the deep structure of story
*the language of beginnings, endings and repeated refrains
*the use of intonation, expression and non-verbal sounds which gives vitality and energy to tales

I ask the children to 'draw pictures of the parts of the story they liked best'. These pictures are always very vivid and detailed, to then ask the children to speak about the picture is a lovely, easy way for them to retell the story with this visual aid' in their hands. Often they add their own details, thereby joining the long line of tellers of that tale; bringing a little bit of themselves to it.

I also ask children to 'act out parts of the story' and this too gives them another opportunity to really connect with it and make it their own, bringing their 'own vocabulary and expression' into the retelling along with the vocabulary and expression they have 'internalised' from the original telling.

The link between the spoken story and the written story has always been present and there is no absolute division between the oral and literary traditions. So the nature of the poetic, evocative and naturally metaphorical language of traditional tales aids memorisation and creative written 'retellings.'

Poetry arising from storytelling

The central images in a story resonate and are a natural focus for poetry e.g. fire - in so many traditional tales of how we came to have fire' and in the Mowgli stories. The red flower' that blossoms on the end of dead branches; that
needs to be fed with dry twigs and leaves; that warms us, lights up the dark, and so
on.

After telling stories about Fire I can bring fire' into the classroom in the form of floating candles, sparklers.

The poetry that comes after being absorbed in the stories and in seeing Fire up close' is of a very vivid and original kind.

When I tell stories I use tuned and untuned percussion; whistles, flutes and bells for sound effect. As part of a follow-up poetry workshop I focus on those parts of the stories where the instruments were used and get the children to focus on those sounds and to be absorbed in the pictures that come into their heads in response to them.

Burmese Gong

Indian women dancing,
skirts as light as feathers,
their steps as smooth as your face,
their faces as pretty as stars.
Colours red, orange, yellow and brown.
I was in a sunset dream.

Evanya Wilson Year 4 St. James Hatcham

I emphasise playing with words and focusing on the experience.

Words are such fun and children find them so.

Pimento mento
I meant to say
how sweet,
how sweet you are.
Your taste is hot as pepperpot,
exploding like a star.

Year 5

After a story which featured vegetables I brought a lot of vegetables into school. The children passed them around, handled them, smelt them. One boy remarked how like a pair of clown's trousers a red pepper looked, the children were very enthusiastic. They told of helping grandparents 'back home' digging, planting and harvesting vegetables. 'Back home' was Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Phillipinnes, Bangladesh. They wrote poems which they then wrote out 'in best' onto the back of postcards that I had brought in and sent them to the relatives 'back home'.

At the end of a residency it is important to have a record of what has been achieved. either a performance which is recorded, a well produced collection of children's writing; something of permanence.
It is also important during the residency to establish a practice within the school of playing with words: e.g. skipping rhymes, clapping games, circle games, ball games which I have devised to extend the children's vocabulory.

I have also found many uses for those wonderful 'free postcards' that you get in fitness centres and some up - market cafes. One class can send postcards to another class with poems, riddles, tongue twisters, tangletalk and ask for others to be sent to them in return. How many words can you make from one long word? Endless criss - crossing of 'playing with words' around the school brings the aquisition of language to the forefront and makes it into a game. The children must have 'words in the mouth' and be alert to the wonder of language before they will write anything of any significance.

I can work with all age groups and am very flexible about fitting with a school's agenda. I will say though that to be able to work with a class of children over a period of four to six weeks is best. One day a week for example.
I can spend the whole day in the school running workshops with different year groups then leaving work to follow through during the week where I can take it up again on the next visit.

Recent work
In the last two years I have:

• performed in more than a hundred schools and in theatres, libraries, playschemes and country parks throughout the country
• run sessions for teachers as part of Cambridge University School of Education's 'Year of Reading'
• performed for the Literature Festivals of the London boroughs of Brent and Harrow
• run courses for teachers in the London boroughs of Hounslow, Haringay and Ealing, and in Oxford and Croydon
• initiated 'Spread the Word', an ongoing oracy and literacy project in the London boroughs of Lewisham and Harrow, working with teachers and their classes during the Literacy Hour

Comments
'Such enthusiasm. It's a treat to have you here. We are still singing and chanting your rhymes.'
North Ealing Primary School

'The children enjoyed your workshops and several of them have said that it was the highlight of our Book Week. Thank you again and I hope that we can work together in the future.'
Kenmore Park Middle School, Harrow

'A huge thank you for joining us for Reading Week. Everyone spoke so warmly about you and your wonderful stories; the parents loved them. It's always such a pleasure to work with you. You are so flexible, understanding and calm. Please come again.'
Deptford Green High School, Lewisham

'Your stories and songs are brilliantly performed and the very best thing is that you have connected with and responded so sensitively to all the different audiences you have had today'
Teacher at Fenstanton Primary School, Tulse Hill

To book Anne for a performance in your school...
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