The Power
of Storytelling:
Practice
Elements
of Practice
Drawing on experience, good storytelling processes share some practical elements. While there is no one way to run a storytelling workshop, it is still important to give thought to what storytelling workshops are like, and what helps develop a storytelling process that respects our principles. The way that these elements of practice are implemented may look different depending on the specific context, group, theme and purpose for the storytelling. Overall, they are a helpful guide to improve the quality of storytelling.
Good storytelling practice:
is creative
is Iterative and multi-modal
Takes time
Needs the right space
Requires inclusive facilitation
Elements of Practice 1
Creative
The practice of storytelling should foster storytellers’ creativity, as being creative is essential to telling stories. By creative, we mean that storytellers use their own creativity to express their ideas. This requires time and opportunity for crafting the story through different forms of expression. Increasing the creativity in storytelling processes also expands the possibility for learning.
Questions to think with:
What will help participants
feel creative?
How can you show that you value participants’ creativity?
What areas of creativity do participants feel most confident in, and how can you adapt your storytelling to these areas?
What resources can you use to support creativity in your setting?
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Sample creative activity: free writing
Objectives:
Encourage creativity through writing, break out of functional patterns of writing, introduce elements of story through creative writing
Materials:
Blank paper and pen/pencil, or a blank document on a computer/tablet/phone.
Prompts:
1. I remember when….
2. I remember I felt….
3. I remember what I/she/he/they did when….
Time required:
20 minutes
Instructions:
Write for 2 minutes on each prompt. Write without stopping or editing your writing to allow the thoughts to flow as freely as possible. Writing should be done on paper or on a blank Word document. After each round, give participants the option to share what they have written to the group or keep it private.
Elements of Practice 2:
Iterative and multi-modal:
Storytelling practice should involve telling the stories multiple times and in different ways so that the storyteller has several opportunities to explore the meaning and boundaries of their story. In the process of developing the stories, participants should have the opportunity to tell the story in more than one mode, where possible. Telling the stories through different modes adds to multiple possible layers of meaning. Final stories can be told in one specific mode.
Questions to think with:
What are the different versions of the story you have planned for in the process? Written, spoken, visual, embodied, etc.? How will you move from one to the next?
What support will you give participants with each version?
What support can participants give each other with each version? How can they share different versions of the story with each other?
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Sample creative activity: critical friend exercise
Objectives:
Peer feedback is a useful technique to support story development. However, it needs to be used in a way that encourages the confidence of storytellers as well as contributes to the quality of the story.
Materials:
Draft stories, handout with questions for peer feedback
Time required:
45 minutes
Instructions
Create pairs of storytellers to share drafts of story scripts. Invite each participant to be a critical friend by providing constructive feedback on how to improve the stories. Be clear what it means to be a critical friend and that this involves constructive feedback.
1. Give guiding questions for their feedback to each person. These questions should be set to support story development, based on where you are in the story development process and what you want to achieve in the next iteration of the story.
2. In pairs, participants should read their stories to each other.
3. Participants should listen carefully to the story and then respond to the guiding questions to give each other feedback.
4. Allow 15 minutes for sharing stories and 10 minutes for feedback on each story.
5. Then each participant can use the final 10 minutes to make notes about what changes they would like to make to their story.
High quality storytelling practice takes time – often more than you expect. It is important to protect the time for storytelling and recognise its importance. This includes time to think, time to experiment and make the story, time to listen, time to share the stories, and time to make sense of the stories and the experience of telling them. In addition to this, it is important to think about time across the wider process of connecting with, engaging, and keeping in touch with storytellers afterwards. Supporting ways for the group to connect with each other before the storytelling process starts, and connecting after the process to reflect, can support stronger relationships of trust, openness, and engagement – but these all take time!
Elements of Practice 3:
Good storytelling practice takes time
Questions to think with:
Have you allowed time for getting to know each other and establishing a good way of working together?
Have you allowed time for being creative?
Have you allowed time for story development and story crafting?
Have you allowed time for discussing what should happen to the stories once they are finished?
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Example: flexible agendas
Storytelling processes can take place intensively over a few days, or in an extended programme over several weeks or months. Either way, as the facilitator, you need to be constantly conscious of story progression, storyteller needs, and pace. In our practice, we start out with a detailed agenda for the process that culminates in a celebratory story-sharing session on the final day, but we know that the type, sequence, and time-allocated for different activities might look very different by the end of the process. The facilitation team meets after every session to take stock of where the storytellers are in the process, where more support is needed, or where a faster pace is required.
“When we ask our learners to write a story, we give them three hours. But here, we have had three days to flesh these stories out. It makes me realise how pressed we are for time in education, and yet we expect good results from our learners. For me, this process has been such a reminder to think about how storytelling — doing it in a way that you can really learn from it — takes time. I think we all need to give our learners a little more grace in their creativity”.
Teacher / storyteller, South Africa
Elements of Practice 4: Place
Storytelling can be done online or in person, but the place where the storytelling is done matters. It needs to be a space, whether virtual or physical, where storytellers and facilitators feel comfortable, will be able to make a mess, experiment with different ideas and techniques, connect with other participants, feel there is an element of privacy, and see their ideas and work reflected around them as they develop.
Questions to think with:
If it’s an in-person workshop, can you move the furniture and make a mess? If not, it may be be difficult to use the space effectively.
Are there informal spaces for participants to hang out and chat/connect with others? How could you add this?
Are there spaces where you can be sure that participants can share their stories without being overheard/where it is private?
How much control do you have over who (outside of the storytelling process) might be accessing or passing through the space?
Workshop in Zimbabwe
At a storytelling workshop in Zimbabwe, we had a separate space for the storytellers to share new versions of their story each day.
It was a short walk from the workshop space, which was busy with craft materials and artwork and had a beautiful view across the valley. This separation of crafting space and sharing space supported concentration and focus as the stories were shared and responded to.
Flexibility with the space is important. We often move furniture around each day, depending on the activities planned, or if we feel the layout is not supporting the process.
If the storytelling process is taking place online, it is important to help people to identify the boundaries around the space they are in, and how this impacts other people. For example, if someone is participating from a space where other people are present and in earshot, it can be distracting for the whole group, and other storytellers might feel the confidentiality is compromised. On the other hand, because storytelling processes can be quite intense, participants in our online workshops have identified benefits in being able to have more control over their presence in the workshop space. Many choose, for example, to have their cameras off when they share their story or listen to other people’s stories. As long as the group agrees to this, it is important to recognise that this can be a demonstration of enhanced, not reduced, engagement: participants utilising the affordances of the online space to facilitate focus and reflection.
Elements of Practice 5:
Inclusive Facilitation
Sensitive and inclusive facilitation is an essential part of doing storytelling well. This means being able to adapt the process to what storytellers need to help them, and also being aware of how facilitators use their own power in the process. In practice, this can often require multiple facilitators with flexible roles to support different people at different times of need in story development. It also requires ongoing reflection and discussion, to become aware of how your facilitation affects others and how you can improve it.
Questions to think with:
How will you bring in the facilitation skills needed for the storytelling process (through learning them, or bringing in a skilled facilitator)?
What are your strengths and weaknesses as a facilitator? How could you balance these by working with others?
During the storytelling process, what challenges did you encounter and how did you respond? How could you improve your approach?
Have you allowed time for discussing what should happen to the stories once they are finished?
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Example: flexible agendas
We ran a storytelling process that was far more popular than we anticipated. In our attempt to be inclusive, we doubled the number of workshops we were running within the time we had available. This meant splitting our time across the workshops and often only having one facilitator in each space with 12 storytellers. Facilitation works especially well when one person is concentrating on leading the activity, and the other person is watching the room to understand how each storyteller is engaging and offering support where necessary. After the third session of one of the workshops, a storyteller decided not to complete the process. In our experience, this is rare, but it caused us to reflect on how attempts to be overarchingly inclusive can lead to people feeling excluded from the process.
Storytelling facilitation involves the complex challenge of moving a group forward collectively, while also holding space and time for individual expression. If you are a highly experienced facilitator, it is possible to lead a storytelling process alone, but we recommend that where possible, especially if you are not an experienced facilitator, that you work with a team approach.
We also choose to facilitate in diverse teams with colleagues from different contexts and with different skillsets. This enables us to support different storytellers, and the different artistic and technical approaches they choose to work with, and be more responsive to issues arising during the storytelling process.