09/10/2008 Lession on Narrative

What happened in the lecture...

• Ball Throwing Game
• Read the start of 'Overspill' in groups of three then watched one group perform it
  
• The 12 Dancing Princesses told in different way

- Relaxed way (allowed to sit in a comfy position)
- Primary School Teacher (Patronising, acting out the words i.e Rowing, disjointed, sit up straight, told off)
- Students took the seat and tried to relay the story back. If got it wrong another student allowed to sit in the chair and tell the story correctly
- Adapting the story, using the same start then going around the circle saying a couple of sentences to develop the story into something different

• Tell a true story to each other in Pair, One interview style (i.e. controlling the story by asking questions) and the other free speech (letting the storyteller speak freely without questions)
• Read our Stories back to each other and then in groups of 4
• Chose a story and how/where to stage that story

In the lecture when Molly was telling us the story, I felt relaxed and free to imagine the story how I wanted to and as she allowed us to relax and just told us the story, the story told itself and allowed the class to get lost in imagining the fairytale in our heads. Then as soon as Molly suddenly changed into a very assertive manner and told us all to sit up and concentrate, this completely distracted me from the story. Molly also told us to stop fidgeting and to act out the actions within the book like, the rowing of the boat. Telling the story in this way made the narrative disjointed and almost felt like she was forcing us to imagine what the boat would look like and what the castle would look like instead, of just allowing our minds to wander and imagine freely. The status between Molly and the class at this point was very unequal. However when we started to move on and were allowed to tell the story ourselves sitting in the 'teacher's chair' it allowed the distance in status to diminish. This was taken one step further when we all sat on the floor in a circle and allowed to adapt the story sentence by sentence. However this total equality did have its limitations as you would have a sentence of what you wanted to say already in your head and then the person before you would change the story completely so it forced you to be spontaneous and give up your idea. Another downside to telling a story this way is when you come up with an idea and then the person next to you says 'no they didn't do that they did ...'. In a class children where some of the members might be quite shy these sorts of comments can be a little bit damaging.

When we told a true story of a night out that we had had to another member of the class and they told it back to us, i became very possesive over my story. If they missed a slight detail out i wanted to correct them as i felt that every point was important However, when reading someone else's story i felt quite responsible for not missing out details on their story. It was quite nice to learn a little bit more about someone that otherwise i might not have known.