Storytelling

In the oral tradition, storytelling depends on an audience: the listeners create the images from the words told by the storyteller. In this, the audience is co-creator of the art. Storytellers dialogue with their audience-- adjusting their words to respond to the listeners and adjust to the moment.

The intrinsic nature of stories was recently described in A Palpable God, (1997) by Reynolds Price (Akkadine Press) when he wrote:

"A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens--second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths."

Stories of wise men are well known, such as Solomon and Nasreddin.

Modern storytellers may be actors, singers, rappers and comedians.

See also: folklore, fairy tale, oral history storytelling game

Readings

Bruner, J. ACTUAL MINDS, POSSIBLE WORLDS. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Bruner, J. MAKING STORIES. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2002.

Leitch, T. M. WHAT STORIES ARE: NARRATIVE THEORY AND INTERPRETATION. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986.

Randall, W. "Restorying a Life: Adult Education and Transformative Learning." In AGING AND BIOGRAPHY: EXPLORATIONS IN ADULT DEVELOPMENT, edited by J. E. Birren et al., pp. 224-247. New York: Springer Publishing, 1996.

Wiessner, C. A. "Stories of Change: Narrative in Emancipatory Adult Education." Ed.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2001.

External links

• The National Storytelling Network (USA)
• Narrative and Stories in Adult Teaching and Learning
• Storytelling: Its Wide-Ranging Impact in the Classroom