Teacher Workshops
"This year I participated in the Teacher Training in Storytelling, put on by Performances To Grow On. I joined other educators in workshops led by professional storytellers who coached and guided us in the ever inspiring art of storytelling. Wow! What an incredible experience. I learned new techniques in connecting with students and people of all ages. I consider myself to be a better educator because of my participation in the storytelling training. I can’t say enough about the value of these workshops." – Theresa Dutter, principal and teacher
“I really appreciated the strategies to incorporate immediately in the classroom. Antonio presented practical enjoyable and fun activities I can use in my classroom.” – Peter Frank
“I thoroughly enjoyed listening and learning from these great storytellers. I’ve been teaching for 30 years and I’m always looking for new ways to teach. I loved the new ideas that I could go back to my classroom and teach tomorrow’. – Jayne Tucker
Performances To Grow On has received a grant to train teachers in the art of storytelling. We will offer 3 training sessions all led by professional tellers. The workshops are FREE for teachers in East Ventura County. Teachers outside of East Ventura County and individuals can attend the sessions for $25 per workshop. The workshops will be 3 hours in length and will take place after school from 4 to 7pm at the Grant Brimhall Library, 1401 E. Janss Rd, Thousand Oaks in the Marvin Smith Community Room. In addition teachers in the project will have an opportunity to bring their students to a free storytelling performance in Thousand Oaks with 2 time Grammy Winner, Bill Harley on March 29 at the Scherr Forum Theatre at 9:30 for primary students and 11 for upper grade students. Teachers must attend all 3 workshops in order to be eligible for the free Bill Harley performance.
Goal: to help teachers utilize the art of storytelling to enhance literacy skills in the classroom.
The three sessions are as follows:.
Tuning Your Telling
with Antonio Sacre
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Antonio Sacre, born in Boston in 1968 to a Cuban father and an Irish American mother, is an internationally touring writer, storyteller, and solo performance artist based in Los Angeles. He earned a BA in English from Boston College and a MA in Theater Arts from Northwestern University. Author of 10 plays and over 30 stories, he has performed at the Kennedy Center, the National Storytelling Festival, the Library of Congress' Festival of the Book, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and various theater festivals nationwide. Antonio brings fables and family to life in stories told in English, in Spanish, or an animated interweaving of both..
Antonio Sacre is the best kind of storyteller, drawing you into his world with such subtlety that you hardly notice what he's doing--until the story ends and you find yourself longing for just one more anecdote, one more voice.
Bill Harley
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
A Love of Story - Bill offers after school workshops to interested teachers, focusing on two aspects of his work - storytelling and writing. He gives teachers simple hands-on experience in telling stories to use as a teaching tool and to help their students develop their own storytelling skills. A serious student of story, Bill offers teachers a better understanding of how and why story works and how to encourage students to explore the wonderful world that story offers. Perhaps most important, Bill’s workshop for teachers honors the best of what they do and leaves them energized to keep doing their job.
"Bill Harley has the uncanny ability to reaffirm life for listeners, be they five or fifty. Humor, empathy, intelligence and reality all radiate from his work and from him." - Penguin Books
A two-time Grammy award-winning artist, recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the RI Council for the Humanities, Bill uses song and story to paint a vibrant and hilarious picture of growing up, schooling and family life. His work spans the generation gap, reminds us of our common humanity and challenges us to be our very best selves. A prolific author and recording artist, Bill is also a regular commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered" and featured on PBS. He joined the National Storytelling Network's Circle of Excellence in 2001 and tours nationwide as an author, performing artist and keynote speaker.
Beth Horner - Wrangling Those Creative Juices: Story Creation with Children
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Mothers, fathers, teachers, preachers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers...if you work with children and recognize the great story producing potential they have, this is the workshop for you. In this hands-on workshop, Beth takes participants through specific methods and techniques to use in teaching school-aged children to create and write stories, poems and songs. Bring your own imaginations!
Teaching different aspects of storytelling is a particular passion for Beth. She is an adjunct faculty member at Dominican University in Chicago and conducts workshops nation-wide on numerous wide-ranging aspects of storytelling.
Debi Richan, Vice President of Programming for the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival wrote of Beth's workshop on Story Creation With Children: "Beth Horner is amazing. An accomplished teller herself, she clearly understands how to teach those concepts to others, an entirely different gift...one of the most hands-on,down-to-earth, truly useful workshops I have ever attended!"
Beth Horner is noted as a vivacious talent dedicated to providing an entertaining and empowering experience for her listeners, young and old. Her performances captivate audiences with a wide variety of folk, literary, traditional, contemporary and original tales from around the world. Horner's lively, traditional storytelling style often incorporates music, creating a unique performance which critics have called "dynamite!" Each program is designed for the specific audience's age and interests (with listener participation for young audience). A nationally acclaimed storyteller who has performed for adults, teens and children for over 18 years, Beth Horner takes her listeners on journeys of adventure, warmth, wonder, haunting eeriness and raucous laughter.
Each school participating selects a team of 2 to 4 teachers to attend each workshop. The same teachers must attend each session.
Requirements:
- Each teacher to create 2 standards based lessons using storytelling. The lessons will be compiled in a booklet.
- Each teacher to tell 3 stories to their class: one folktale, one personal story and one story of their choice
- Each student from each class to tell one folktale to other students.