Courses

033:115/01J:115 What is Storytelling For?

THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
PROGRAM IN LITERATURE, SCIENCE & THE ARTS

INSTRUCTORS
Amy Peterson • ajp@avalon.net
Steve McGuire • s-mcguire@uiowa.edu
13-E North Hall, tel. 335-3011 • Office Hrs. M 10 -12 & by appt.

OVERVIEW
This course aims to illuminate storytelling's importance in our lives and in human societies, and to help students develop their own philosophy of the role of storytelling in their own and others' acts of interpretation. On a personal level, our capacity to create pictures of how lives should be led and how our own lives intertwine with others' comes down to telling stories. To be sure, storytelling has an entertainment value, but stories are told for the purpose of explaining why something happened one way instead of another. On a broader social scale, it is through shared stories that we acquire common cultural understandings of our own communities—be they local, national or global—and the moral expectations and boundaries of those communities. Our discussions, readings, writings, presentations, and other individual and collective exercises and efforts are intended to advance several things simultaneously: your skills as an effective storyteller, your abilities to interpret stories that others tell, and your understanding of how storytelling connects moments of lived experience and ideas to suggest particular meanings.
A major part of the course entails developing stories based on personal experiences, be they mundane or exotic, and from insights gleaned from reflecting on those experiences and setting them up against others' experiences, and sharing these stories through performance. Our goal is to help you begin to recognize how storytelling underpins curiosity and inquiry, affirms relationships, and also carries implied challenges for both tellers and recipients. At a deep level, storytelling represents a commitment to understand better what something means. The complexity of knowledge you already possess in your personal stories, the rich store of culturally common stories you share with others, and your ability to imagine alternative versions of stories in a spirit of openness and tolerance all these provide a basis for learning as well as for living.

COURSE FORMAT
The course revolves around discussion and storytelling performances. Each Monday meeting there will be discussion of course topics and readings, and, storytelling performances, which will take up the major portion of class time.

ASSIGNMENTS & OTHER OBLIGATIONS
Readings and responses. Distribution of additional materials will be arranged in class. You are expected to keep up with assigned reading, and periodically to prepare brief written summaries or analyses of the material (2 double-spaced typed pages, using 1-inch margins and 12-point font).

Storytelling performance: Each student will perform at least six 10-minute, stories during the course of the semester. The storytelling component of this course is meant to provide you with experience before an audience. Emphasis is placed on your involvement with your storytelling, so that you will not be graded on “talent, but rather on: (a) the expression of idiosyncratic meanings, (b) whether, in your involvement with your storytelling, you made discoveries about form and approach, (c) your reflection on your storytelling performance upon completion.
(2) Evaluating your performance: Each student will compose a written critique of their performance using a guide presented below.
(3) Class participation and contributions, including active listening and constructive responses to classmates work.

Additional instructions for assignments will be provided in class.

GRADING
Your course grade will incorporate the following components (we do assign plusses or minuses):

Storytelling performances: 40% of total
Reporting project: 35 % of total
Other class contributions: 25 % of total

OTHER COURSE POLICIES & INFORMATION

Attendance is not optional
Except in cases of death in the family, illness serious enough to keep you home, or other genuine emergencies or crises, you are expected to attend all meetings of lecture and section. More than one unexcused absence will result in a lowering of your course grade; multiple absences can result in a failing grade. If you must miss a class, notify the instructors in person or by e-mail in advance; if extenuating circumstances make advance notice impossible, you must provide a written explanation of your absence as soon as possible.
Arriving to class late/leaving class early. This is disruptive so please do not arrive late, and of course, don’t leave early.
Meeting deadlines
You will be marked down for failing to meet deadlines. If you anticipate a problem with a deadline, you must notify the instructors in advance.

Homework Expectation
For each semester hour of credit that a you should expect to spend approximately two hours per week outside of class preparing for class sessions. That is, in a three-credit-hour course, we assume that you will spend six hours per week in out-of-class preparation.

Special accommodations. We will make reasonable accommodations for students with physical, mental or learning disabilities. Students with disabilities which may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements (during our office hours) so that appropriate arrangements may be made. It is the student's responsibility to contact Student Disability Services, 3100 Burge Hall (335-1462) and obtain a Student Academic Accommodation Request form (SAAR). The form will specify what course accommodations are judged reasonable for that student. An instructor who cannot provide the accommodations specified, or has concerns about the accommodations, must contact the Student Disability Services counselor who signed the request form within 48 hours of receiving the form from the student.

Concerns related to the course
All students in the College have specific rights and responsibilities. You have the right to adjudication of any complaints you have about classroom activities or instructor actions. Information on these procedures is available in the Schedule of Courses and on-line in the College's Student Academic Handbook (http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/). You also have the right to expect a classroom environment that enables you to learn. We are open to hearing student concerns related to the course and wish to know your thoughts. Speak with us during office hours and/or e-mail us. Departmental/Collegiate Complaint Procedures

Departmental/Collegiate Complaint Procedures
A student who has a complaint against any member of the college's teaching staff is responsible for following the procedures described in the Student Academic Handbook, which is available on the web site of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/. The student should attempt to resolve the issue with the faculty member or teaching assistant involved. Lacking a satisfactory outcome, the student can turn to the department chair, Helena Dettmer, Division of Interdiscilinary Programs 404 JB, 1 319 335 3821. If a satisfactory outcome still is not obtained, the student can turn to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and submit a written complaint to the Associate Dean for Academic Programs, 120 Schaeffer Hall, (335-2633). Complaints may concern inappropriate faculty conduct (including inappropriate course materials), incompetence in oral communication, inequities in assignments, scheduling of examinations at other than authorized and published times, failure to provide disability accommodations, or grading grievances. In complaints involving the assignment of grades, it is college policy that grades cannot be changed without the permission of the department concerned.

Plagiarism And Cheating
You are expected to be honest and honorable in your fulfillment of assignments and in test-taking situations. Plagiarism and cheating are serious forms of academic misconduct. Examples of them are given in the Student Academic Handbook: http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/. An instructor who suspects a student of plagiarism or cheating must inform the student (in writing) as soon as possible after the incident has been observed or discovered. Instructors who detect cheating or plagiarism may decide, in consultation with the departmental executive officer, to reduce the student's grade on the assignment or the course, even to assign an F. The instructor writes an account of the chronology of the plagiarism or cheating incident for the departmental executive officer who sends an endorsement of the written report of the case to the Associate Dean for academic programs. A copy of the report will be sent to the student.

Your Responsibilities
Your responsibilities to this class-and to your education as a whole-include attendance and participation. This syllabus details specific expectations the instructor about attendance and participation. You have a responsibility to help create a classroom environment where all may learn. At the most basic level, this means you will respect the other members of the class and the instructor and treat them with the courtesy you hope to receive in return.

Methods For Learning and Performing a Story

Everyone has his or her own favorite methods. The following are suggestions, but you should find the method that works best for you personally. The most important thing, of course, is practice, practice, and practice! Not necessarily, though, the story you plan to tell. But rather, tell stories often.
Telling stories is less about memorized words than about returning to a memory or feeling. You always retell in telling a story. Storytelling is not memorizing words. In fact, trying to memorize words can eventually result in a ruined performance. So: Don't be afraid you'll forget the words. It is much easier to tell a story as a series of images than as a set of memorized words.

Make a story map (a listing of key words, phrases, or scenes in sequence).
“What were you thinking?”
I was 12 years old, “Steve, what do you want to paint?”
My grandfather became an artist in an ordinary but roundabout way.
Demon Hot Wheel.
Gateway Sporting Goods on the Plaza
I hung the painting to dry in my room on a white brick chimney.
Later in that summer, two new Hot wheels were issued,
Some years later, August, 1994, The caption says,
“Twenty-five below zero,
It was an image that was demanding.
Wouldn’t you know, several weeks later, February 19th, 1995, “What were you thinking? What was in your head”
“Thump!” up against a tree……. I was eighteen years old,
As I laid on the trail that night, the Northern Lights cascaded green above me,
and I thought, “Isn’t that a magnificent image? ….Martin Buser
In a heart-beat I was torn from my bicycle
Twenty hours later, fifty-one hours after the race began,
I showed my father that photograph Later that summer in 1970,
Fate should have it so wonderful.
I handed Don Prudhomme my grandpa's camera
Now, I tell you this because as I stood at the finish line of the Idita-Bike, I realized that a long time ago I had learned a lesson from a hidden teacher: If you pay attention to the images in your head and follow them all the way through, you will always be heading in the right direction.

Tell the story to anyone (or anything) that will listen, such as dogs, cats, friends, and family. The more the story is told, the more firmly it will be planted in your voice.

Tell the story to yourself whenever you have a chance - when walking the dog, washing the dishes, waiting for a ride. You will learn the story well enough thatyou will be able to tell it even if you are distracted while performing (for example, if a baby starts crying).

Performance Presence

Tell the story in the your own words (However, it is often helpful to memorize the first and last lines of the story. This way the story will start and end smoothly.)
Acting a story can be a problem. Sometimes exaggerated movements are overplayed in storytelling.
Look at people in the audience before you begin and find a few faces that you imagine will support your telling. But don't scan the audience in a forced, artificial way. Keep in mind that meeting the eyes of people in the audience happens because you're trying to explain something better to someone; not being an actor matters in the eye contact of storytelling.
The beginning of the story is often the hardest part of telling it. You have to let go of things and enter the story -- "Use the 'Fork' Luke."
While listening to others, model the kind of listening you expect while telling. Doing this, you hear better and in turn learn more about how to tell better.

Projection You should project your voice so that all can hear.

Diction You should enunciate carefully and use your voice effectively.

Poise You should be relaxed (as much as you can be) in you story performance. Store away a story you seem to be resisting-- it's like not telling a story you're not sure you should tell to a particular person -- for now. There are millions of stories. You may grow into telling it later.

Personality The flavor of the story should be brought out by your performance, i.e., humorous story, scary story.

Time The story must last less than ten (10) minutes.

Questions to consider regarding your stories, pre-storytelling and “Response” to your story, post-storytelling
For your response to your story (3 double-spaced typed pages, using 1-inch margins and 12-point font) answer questions 1 through 5 below and five questions from6 through 10.
1. What new idea or truth stemming from your story occurred to you while or after telling your story to the audience?

2. Does the beginning draw the audience in, or could it be improved upon (consider and memorize the opening sentence, in particular…)?
3. Where do you sense rhythm in your story? Is there a refrain? How does the language flow/sound? Are you using repetition or parallelism in interesting ways? What images or words are repeated and to what effect?

4. What does the ending do to your audience? How will it make your listeners feel? How could the ending be more effective at creating some sense of movement or resolution in the piece?

5. How would you answer the question “What is this about” in a single sentence? Trace indices of this sentence back through the course of your story.

6. Is the middle section organized in a manner that keeps your audience attentive, or are there spots that are still muddled? What strategies are available to vary the pace? More dialogue? More action? More detail? What details are required by an audience, and when is it appropriate to provide those details? Are there sufficient details about the setting? Details to convey character? Details to create a mood?

7. Are there moments in which you linger longer? Where/why? Does the “where/why” have an emotional/personal motivation or a communicative/narrative motivation? (And how do the two different motivations lead to different effects?)

8. What metaphors or details are distracting, and which might be helpful to serve the main themes/character descriptions/settings, etc.?

9. Is your “voice” distinctive? How would you describe it? Formal? Funny? Wistful? Sarcastic? Straightforward? Analytical? Critical? Poetic? Etc.? Two voices at once (irony)? If so, are they in conflict, or supportive of each other?

10. How would you describe the change that occurs in a main character in your story? What clues prepare the audience for the credibility of that change?

11. How would you characterize the balance between narrative (showing) and exposition (telling) in your story? The rule tends to be “more show, less tell”: do you think you have hit a balance between the two in your story?

12. What kind of sentences and lexicon are you utilizing?

13. Is there a clear conflict in this piece? Do you as the narrator have a clear stake in what happens? How does that stake influence your story?

14. Is the nominal subject—or story of action—clear or are there places where you are unclear about real time and place?

Story themes of the course:

It was an Educational Experience.

What were you thinking?

Ethical dilemma.

Proverb

A repeated story

A place to begin.

It was an Educational Experience.

I feel most creative very early in the morning. But I’m never awake then.
--Elliot Goldenthal, composer of “Interview with the Vampire”

Notes on The Kicker

The kicker is a short sentence that comes at the end of a series of longer sentences or at the conclusion of a full paragraph. Its effect depends on context, of course: it might be the kind of searing insight that serves to deepen what comes before, a jolt of surprise. Chris Anderson, author of Free Style, says what gives short sentences their power is their rareness. “We live in a world of empty promises, everything inflated for salesmanship or status. People just don’t expect writers to come out and say what they mean. When you do, you catch them by surprise, making them sit up and notice.” Often the kicker operates the same way a punch line to a joke does, illustrating Shakespeare’s belief: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Two examples:

From Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott:

I believed, before I sold my first book, that publication would be instantly and automatically gratifying, an affirming and romantic experience, a Hallmark commercial where one runs and leaps in slow motion across a meadow filled with wildflowers into the arms of acclaim and self-esteem.
This did not happen for me.

From Jo Ann Beard’s Boys of My Youth:

I feel like a rabid dog, but I smile placidly and make idle chat with the wife of his best friend, the future chiseler. In the car on the way home I say to him in the most dangerous tone I can come up with, “You have got to treat me like an equal.” The wiper blades clock back and forth, car lights bear down and then pass. He says, looking straight ahead through the glistening windshield, simply and sadly, “I can’t.”

Homework for your first story: Be aware of the power of kickers: Do you use one or more of them? Is your kicker a true kicker? Is it in danger of falling flat? Why or why not? Distinguish carefully between a kicker and a moral-of-the-story.

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