Lunetta_Christina_Storytelling Experience 1

Storytelling Experience (Week 2): Storytelling with a Book

    This week I had the opportunity to participate in my first digital storytelling experience. For this activity, I completed a video recording of myself reading a children’s storybook aloud. I wanted to read a book that I personally enjoyed and had read before. After perusing my home library, I decided to read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. I have a lot of fond memories of this story. When I was young, this was one of my favorites as I felt a strong connection to the main character, Chrysanthemum. In the story, she is teased by some girls at school for having such a long name, 13 letters long to be exact. Growing up, I always remember thinking about how long my first name is; although it only has 9 letters, I still felt that I could relate to Chrysanthemum in this regard.  

 

    Another reason why I chose this story is because it is one that I have read every year at the beginning of the school year for my entire career as an educator. From my student teaching experiences to my first two years as a second-grade teacher, I always started our year off with this book. It’s a great read for the first days of school as the students can relate to those new school year feelings that are expressed in the story. They also learn about uniqueness, acceptance of self, and acceptance of others. I knew from my personal experiences that this is a story that children enjoy because of its detailed illustrations, unique characters, hints of humor, and repetitive words and phrases, which is why I thought it would be great to read aloud for a storytelling event.  

 

    To begin preparing for my storytime, I first had to find a decent location for recording. I decided to sit in front of my home library bookshelf so that the entire background of the video was filled with books. I thought this location would be ideal, as it continues to promote reading without me having to call attention to it. The only issue was that the lighting in this area wasn’t great, so I had to make some adjustments to the camera angle to try and accommodate for the bright lights coming in through the window at my side. In the end, the video quality wasn’t as great as I was hoping. I will keep this in mind as I prepare for my next storytelling event and may have to find better lighting or film in a different location.  

    Before I started reading, I flipped through the pages to refresh my memory of the story events and the order that they happened. I also wanted to take a mental note of how many different speaking characters there were so that I could try to make voice adjustments while I read. I began my video with a brief introduction to the book and an explanation of why I chose it. Then, I finally began to tell the tale of sweet little Chrysanthemum. I tried to make sure I was reading the story with a strong, expressive voice. I made sure to use my facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice to showcase attitude when the girls were picking on Chrysanthemum and to show how sad she was as Chrysanthemum “wilted” after hearing their unkind words. I tried to make the character voices different, but after rewatching my recording, I noticed that I was not as consistent as I had hoped with changing my voice, and when I did, the differences weren’t as noticeable as I intended. This is something I plan to continue working on as I prepare for my next storytelling experience.  

 

    I also tried to focus on my pacing while I was reading the story. I was a little worried about completing the story within the 10 minutes time frame that Flipgid allows. I occasionally tend to read fast, so I made sure to remain cognizant of my reading speed and think that I achieved an appropriate pace. Admittedly, there were a few times when I made mistakes while reading. I do not believe that they were noticeable enough to interfere with the understanding of the story. I tried to just keep reading without letting it distract me or disrupt the flow of the story,  but I was a bit frustrated internally, although I know that these things happen while reading a story aloud, and the effect all depends on how you react to it. Next time I might practice reading the story more before I start, even if it is a story I am already very familiar with, just to try and prevent any misreading errors.  

 

    Overall, I thought that my first digital storytelling experience was quite successful. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but I was pleased with the results. I don’t usually like to watch my own recordings, as I don’t really like the sound of my voice on video, but I found this reflective practice of rewatching my storytelling event to be fun and enlightening, especially since I was doing something that I love. Reading stories aloud to a young audience is one of my favorite things to do, and I always try to add as much expression and movement into the experience as possible to truly help bring the story to life. I am excited to take what I have learned through this activity and apply it as I continue to learn and grow as a storyteller so that I am fully prepared to provide captivating storytelling experiences for students in my future library. 

ISCI 600 Storytelling: Reading List 

Legends: 

• The Legend of Papa Noel: A Cajun Christmas Story by Terri Hoover Dunham 
• The Legend of Hong Kil Dong by Ann Sibley O'Brien
• Johnny Appleseed by M.J. York
• John Henry by Dona Rice
• La Llorona: Retelling a Mexican Legend by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin

Folktales: 

• Stone Soup by Helen Lorraine
• Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
• The Little Red Hen by M.J. York
• The Empty Pot by Demi
• Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola