Storytelling Workshop

From SPARK

Contents 1 Unpublished 1.1 Cross-references 1.1.1 Case Histories 1.1.2 Guidelines 1.1.3 Products 1.1.4 References 1.1.5 Editors/Reviewers 1.1.6 Tentative Daily Schedule for: 1.1.7 ORALITY (STORYTELLING) 1.2 WEEK ONE 1.2.1 1st Day 1.2.2 2nd Day 1.2.3 3rd Day 1.2.4 4th Day 1.2.5 5th Day 1.3 WEEK TWO 1.3.1 6th Day 1.3.2 7th Day 1.3.3 8th Day 1.3.4 9th Day 1.3.5 10th Day 1.4 WEEK THREE 1.4.1 11th Day 1.4.2 12th Day 1.4.3 13th Day 1.4.4 14th Day 1.4.5 15th Day 1.5 Some Resources: 1.5.1 Network of Biblical Storytellers

Unpublished

Tentative Daily Schedule for:

ORALITY (STORYTELLING)

EQUIP

Karl Franklin, Instructor

WEEK ONE

1st Day

• Powerpoint: An alternative strategy;
• Lecture and Discussion: General overview of the course. Why storytelling?
• Background: Storytelling Manual, pp.6-19
• Noted: Appendix C: Cultural Topics for Reference, pp.137-141

2nd Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Kinds of Stories
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.20-29
• Exercise: Classifying Stories using McKinney’s types (1992, pp. 147-157)
• Assignment: Choose a short Bible story to tell to a partner in class

3rd Day

• Lecture and Discussion: The Big Idea in a Story
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.30-33
• Exercise in class:
• Divide into groups of two
• Tell each other your story (up to 3x)
• Retell the story to your partner
• Tell the story to the class and discuss as a group

4th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Story Audiences
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.34-37
• Discussion: Adapting stories for children, nursing home, etc.
• Review: Main Idea, Genre of Story, Why stories?
• Assignment: Choose a parable and contextualize it for retelling

5th Day

Lecture and Discussion: Telling stories using parables

• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.38-43
• Exercise and Discussion: parable restructuring for audiences (Divide into groups of two and then report to whole class)
• Example: An application from the Gospel of John: John 15
• Discussion on the meaning, use, purpose and characteristics of parables
• Assignment: Examine the story of the feeding of the 5000 and combine into a meta-narrative.

WEEK TWO

6th Day

Lecture and Discussion: Telling Stories 2.

• Remaining students tell their contextualized parables
• Discussion: Kewa stories and their structures
• Appendix D: Major Themes in PNG Stories, pp.142-144
• Exercise: Examine the story of the feeding of 5000 (Mt 14.13-21; Mk 6.30-44; Luk 9.10-17, Jn 6.1-15 into a meta-story.
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.44-47
• Group Exercise
  1. telling the story;
  2. building background and images;
  3. determining cohesiveness.

7th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Stories as Songs and Drama
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.78-83
• SCB-J: Jn. 2.13-22, pp.49-50
• Exercises: Song/Drama about Story
• Read: Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible, John “From Heaven to Earth,” pp.29-30

8th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Bible Stories
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.57-69;
• “What are Parallel Stories?” SC to the Bible, John; pp.19-21
• Exercise: Blending of story of the feeding of the 5000:
  1. outlining the sequences in the story
  2. determining the settings
  3. choosing core elements
  4. adding materials from conflation of stories
  5. focusing on the main idea in the story.

• Storyteller’s comparison: Jewish traditions, Christian, ‘Pagan’
• Sequence:
  1. Read stories twice aloud
  2. Imagine story
  3. Review for characters etc.
  4. Tell the story (don’t explain)
  5. Consider parallel stories
  6. Practice x 10/20

9th Day

• Examining Stories
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.66-77; Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible—John; pp.104-105 (The Good Shepherd,) John 10.1-21
• Exercises: Feeding of the 5000:
  1. What is the Big Idea?
  2. What is central to the story?
  3. What is peripheral to the story?
  4. Who are the main characters?

• Read: The Miracle of the Loaves (SCB-J,) pp.78-80)

10th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Constructing Bible Stories
• Epic and the Chronological Bible Storytelling approach
• The story cloth and the story board
• Practice: working through the story cloth pictures
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual pp. 48-56
• Appendix G: The Oral and the Written, pp.152-163

WEEK THREE

11th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Recording Stories Background Reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.84-89
• Exercises: Practice in recording some stories

12th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Anthropology, Worldview and Storytelling
• Appendix B: Melanesian Worldview, pp.123-136
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.164-165
• More on Oral Traditions (McKinney, Ch.19)

13th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Dr. Philip Liebelt, NOBST
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.90-95
• Discuss:
  1. Relationship of stories to Scripture Use
  2. Relationship of stories to Literacy
  3. Relationship of stories to Translation

14th Day

• Lecture and Discussion: Translation and Storytelling
• Background reading: Storytelling Manual, pp.96-100
• Appendix A: Skim pp.107-122
• Discuss:
  1. Report on syllabus used in PNG Workshops
  2. Small languages and translation efforts
  3. Language endangerment and data archiving

15th Day

• Lecture and Discussion:
• Determine: Most relevant exercises and chapters in Manual
• Exercise: Choosing stories for Melanesians
• Outlining Personal goals
• Summary and suggestions for the course in the future

Some Resources:

McKinney, Carol V. 1992 edition. Globe trotting in sandals: culture research field methods guide. Dallas: SIL International.

Osborne, Grant R. 1991. The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to Biblical interpretation. InterVarsity Press.

Smith, Dennis E. and Michael E. Williams. 1996. Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible, Volume 10, John. Nashville: Abington Press.

Network of Biblical Storytellers

Internet (Searching on —“biblical storytellers” will yield thousands of hits on the web):

OneStory

Network of Biblical Storytellers (NOBS)

Our World Resource guide to other links on Biblical studies and related materials on the Internet.

Godspell

1. To enable participants to experience the power of biblical storytelling;
2. To introduce some methodologies for internalising the biblical text;
3. To explore some practical applications of biblical storytelling in Christian ministry.

Godspell Workshop From a standing start to a mini-epic in two days! It was an ambitious project, and I worried that it might not adequately convey the necessary depth of the learning and telling process. But it clearly met the primary aims of the workshops, to enable participants to experience the power of biblical storytelling, and teach some straightforward methods of learning and telling the text. There was a lot of interest in the suggestion that participants should keep in touch and meet up in a few months' time to compare notes and encourage one another: perhaps even the beginnings of a network in South India? Who knows? ‘When you start telling biblical stories…'