Storytelling Arts, Inc.
P.O. Box 135
Kingston, NJ 08528-0135

Telephone: (609) 430-1922
Fax: (609) 430-0015
Contact: Ellen Musikant, Interim Executive Director
Email: emusikant@storytellingarts.net
Website: www.storytellingarts.net

Organization Description and Mission

Storytelling Arts

* promotes storytelling as an effective teaching strategy that develops literacy and motivation to learn

* offers educators professional opportunities that improve learning in their classrooms

* provides storytelling residencies, including programs for low-income, special needs, and at-risk students

Since ancient times storytellers have told stories to transmit values, engage the imagination, and foster community. Storytelling has a unique potential to overcome barriers that often interfere with the learning process of children in poverty: thwarted imagination, low self-esteem, and lack of motivation in learning to read and write. As they listen, discuss, and tell stories, students learn to connect to themselves, each other, and the world of ideas; to cultivate the imagination; to heighten social awareness by exploring the conflicts depicted with simplicity and wisdom in world folk literature; and to express themselves clearly and articulately. The art of storytelling in the hands of a skilled teacher can also transform the classroom dynamic by creating a trusting, open, and collaborative environment.

Storytelling Arts offers professional development for teachers at all levels, including pre-service and in-service training and intensive summer institutes. We also provide long-term projects in New Jersey for low-income children in urban schools and daycare centers, teenage mothers, and young people in detention. In these programs professional storytellers provide exemplary models as they introduce student to the art of storytelling, cultivating a deep appreciation for learning and literature.

Storytelling Arts has a staff of ten professional storytellers who are hired as consultants, and they work with approximately 1,500 students per year in long-term projects. We are supported by foundations, schools districts, and government funding.

PLEASE NOTE: Storytelling is neither reading aloud nor reciting from memory. Instead the teller uses voice, gesture, posture, and eye contact to relate a tale that is deeply felt, a gift from the heart. Stories received in this way make a deep and unforgettable impression. Most of the stories we share are multicultural folktales, stories that have survived over a long period of time because of the universal human conditions they describe through humor, wisdom, and enchantment.

We would like to see storytelling accepted and integrated as a vital component of learning, and we are conducting our own research to try to figure out what impact we are actually making on preschool children's emergent literacy skills; elementary school children's motivation, comprehension and visualization skills; and troubled teenagers' ability to articulate ideas and make choices with the help of metaphors that stories offer.

We believe that what we are doing is somewhat unique, yet we do not know that for sure. Academic research in the following areas would help us to see our own work in the context of what others are doing in this field. We are also designing our own assessment studies, and if there is existing research on some of these issues, we do not need to reinvent the wheel in our own assessment studies.

Storytelling Arts, Inc., is currently engaged in long-term projects in preschools, elementary schools, and facilities for incarcerated teens.

• What does current research say about the connection between emotion and learning? There have been some recent studies that highlight the importance of emotion in learning. This is of particular interest to the work of storytellers in the classroom since the emotional connections storytellers make with children seem to help them maintain focus and remember details even after a long period of time has elapsed. What role does storytelling play in the acquisition and strengthening of long term memory?

• Storytelling seems to have a significant impact on emergent literacy, the acquisition of language in early childhood. We are interested to know whether there is any academic research available about the impact of storytelling on emergent literacy. Going back into educational journals for about the past five years, we would like to see a focus on the preschool child. We are interested in having an annotated bibliography, as well as copies of available articles which seem substantive.
  
  
• We are also interested in the impact of storytelling on the elementary school learner and would like to know whether academic research has been done on this. Areas of impact may include, but are not limited to, the following: motivation to read and/or write; the ability to remember a story and retell it clearly and articulately; the growth of self-esteem through storytelling; the ability to visualize and either describe or draw what is in the imagination; the ability to discuss issues raised in a story and relate them to one's own life and the world. We are interested in having an annotated bibliography, as well as copies of available articles which seem substantive
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• How can storytelling change the dynamics of people in a room? How does it build and enhance these group dynamics? Can it create trust and camaraderie among groups of students? How does it foster community?
  
  
• We are working with teenagers who have allegedly committed crimes and are either in juvenile detention or rehabilitation centers. We would like to know whether there are any studies about the work that is been done with these troubled young people in literature and the arts, and in particular whether these programs have had any long-term benefits on behavior and self-image.
  
  
  
  

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