ALLERTON PARK INSTITUTE Number 39 Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute Sponsored by University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science held October 26-28, 1997 Allerton Conference Center Robert Allerton Park Monticello, Illinois Story: From Fireplace to Cyberspace Connecting children and narrative Betsy Hearne, Janice M. Del Negro, Christine Jenkins, Deborah Stevenson, editors The Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 39 th Allerton Park Institute 1998 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. on acid free paper. ISBN 0-87845-105-6 Produced by The Publications Office of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820-6903 Managing Editor: Monica M. Walk Production Assistant: Susan Lafferty Graduate Assistant: Kristin Shahane Cover Design: Heidi Kellner Publications Committee: Leigh Estabrook, Janice Del Negro, Monica M. Walk, David Dubin ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors would like to thank Monica Walk and her staff at the GSLIS Publications Office for their Herculean efforts to ensure us of a well- produced project on schedule; and the GSLIS staff (especially Kathy Painter) and the Center for Children's Books' graduate assistants Shirley Chan, Jennifer DeBaillie, Linda Fenster, Pam McCuen, and Kate McDowell for their labors of love in making the 39th Allerton conference run smoothly. PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to re- print previously published work: Arthur Geisert's art from pages 16 and 17 of Pigs from 1 to 10, 1992; from page 15 of Pigs from A to Z, 1986; and from page 5 of The Etcher's Studio, 1997. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. Joseph Daniel Sobol's chapter, "The Storytelling Festival as Ritualization of the Storytelling Revival Mythos," is excerpted from The Storyteller's Jour- ney: An American Revival (expected 1999) . Used by permission of the Uni- versity of Illinois Press. Cover drawings are created for The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books by Debra Bolgla of the UIUC Office of Publications. Used by permission of the Center for Children's Books. e.s Story: From Fireplace to Cyberspace CONTENTS Introduction Betsy Hearne \ Section One: Story as Practice Janice M. Del Negro 3 Storytelling in the School Library Media Center Anne Shimojima 4 Tangled in the Web: Storytelling, Communication, and Controversy Karen Morgan 1 1 Summary of Workshops Betsy Hearne 20 Section Two: Story as Theory Betsy Hearne 22 The Storytelling Festival as Ritualization of the Storytelling Revival Mythos Joseph Daniel Sobol 23 Midwife, Witch, and Woman-Child: Metaphor for a Matriarchal Profession Betsy Hearne 37 Evaluating Stories for Diverse Audiences Malore I. Brown 52 Summary of Storytelling Concerts Janice M. Del Negro 59 Section Three: Story as Literature Deborah Stevenson 60 Book Linking to Story Judith O'Malley 61 Narrative in Picture Books Or, the Paper that Should Have Had Slides Deborah Stevenson 66 Construction, Illustration and a Plethora of Pigs: Reflections on a Lecture by Arthur Geisert Deborah Stevenson 78 Section Four: Story as Institutional Culture Christine Jenkins 83 The Cycle of Story: From Fireplace to Marketplace Or, "The Kids Keep Tearing Their Jeans" Christine Jenkins 84 For Story's Sake: Reading as its Own Reward Janice M. Del Negro 96 Conclusion Christine Jenkins 106 Appendices Appendix A: Storytelling in the School Library Media Center: Bibliography and Resources Anne Shimojima 108 Appendix B: Evaluating Stories for Diverse Audiences: Annotated Bibliography of Research Tools Malore I. Brown 1 23 Appendix C: Allerton Park Institute 1997 Discography Janice M. Del Negro 1 25 Appendix D: Resources for Storytellers: An Annotated Bibliography Loretta Gaffney 126 Appendix E: Storycrafting: Retelling Old Tales, a Bibliography Janice M. Del Negro 130 About the Contributors 135 Index Jennifer Young \ 39 Introduction Stories live everywhere, but they rarely stay in one place. Despite our attempts to classify, codify, and construe them, stories keep moving too mercurially to fit intellectual categories. Stories also shape- change. They shrink or expand depending on the listener, the medium, the time, the place, and the teller. So a storytelling conference becomes an organic experience and planning one is like lassoing an amoeba. What do you catch and how do you keep it? Or, less figuratively, what do you include and how do you preserve it? We decided on a program that incor- porated both telling stories and telling about stories, both practical and theoretical approaches, both oral and literary forms, with some graphics thrown in for good measure. What's in this book is only partially what happened during the conference a little more, a little less. The papers are revised, the tellings only described. The first section emphasizes practical application. Anne Shimojima draws on her twenty-three years of creative experience incorporating storytelling into a school library media center. Karen Morgan describes storytellers going electronic. Susan Klein andjanice Del Negro give work- shops on varied aspects of storytelling, Susan on young adult rites-of-pas- sage tales andjanice on the adaptation of traditional tales. The second section focuses on theory. Joseph Sobol examines the storytelling revival of the 1970s and '80s. Betsy Hearne looks at women's role as midwife of stories for children in oral, print, and professional traditions. Malore Brown gives a multicultural perspective on storytelling. Meanwhile, Janice Harrington, Susan Klein, and Dan Keding balance these papers with vivid storytelling concerts. We can't recreate them, but we can tell you what they told. The third and fourth sections move into the realm of story in book format, with Judy O'Malley book-linking thematically, Deborah Stevenson analyzing narrative in art, and Arthur Geisert storytelling the creation of a 2 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE picture book with personal and professional aspects interwoven. Since Arthur's slide show eludes representation in print, we show a few pig prints. Finally, Christine Jenkins looks at stories as commodities in the economics of popular culture, and Janice Del Negro considers the story dynamic of literature in library culture. Good storytelling makes education an entertaining experience and entertainment an educational experience. Joseph Sobol's spontaneous balladry closed a conference that proved once again how much learning comes with playing, which is come to think of it what stories are all about. Betsy Hearne Co-editor and 1997 Allerton Proceedings Coordinator Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign September 1998 Section One: Story as Practice Belying the romantic ideal of a wandering storyteller shrouded in the misty fog of an imaginary past, librarians and teachers are deeply grounded professionals who recognize and appreciate the idea of information and story as tool chest. The first two papers to open these Allerton proceedings are eminently practical. They focus on building connections between individuals and stories. Anne Shimojima brings 25 years of library and storytelling experience to her presentation of successful and replicable story programming for students. Moving from person-to-person programming to virtual storytelling, Karen Morgan dis- cusses information sources about storytelling, storytellers, and folklore on the Internet and the World Wide Web. Underlying both of these informa- tion-rich papers is a love of story and a commitment to storytelling that is practical as well as magical. JMD ANNE SHIMOJIMA School Library Media Specialist/IMC Teacher Braeside School Highland Park, Illinois Storytelling in the School Library Media Center When a day passes it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren 't told or books weren 't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. . . . Today, we live, but by tomorrow today will be a story. The whole world, all human life, is one long story. Isaac Bashevis Singer Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus, and Other Stories (10-11) Last year, one of our second-grade classes studied Japan. I am often called upon to tell Japanese stories, but this time I decided to try telling a story that I had formerly reserved for older students and adults. It is a sad, serious story with an unhappy ending. I was a little apprehensive about the students' responses, but I launched into it opti- mistically. After about three minutes, I began to notice that the room was absolutely silent. The children's eyes were fixed upon me, and the air between us seemed to be alive, filled with that story, breathing that story. I realized that although the students were staring straight at me, they didn't see me at all. They were far away in Japan, seeing the images of the story unfold before their eyes. It was one of the moments that you live for as a storyteller, a moment when the story works its magic and your listeners are changed, whether for that moment or for a lifetime. Amidst all of the lessons on the use of the computer catalog, the care of a book, note-taking, research, and the Internet, we as library media specialists are charged with the happy duty of reinforcing in our students SHIMOJIMA/ SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER 5 a love of literature. Twenty-five years of experience in a library media cen- ter have taught me that there is no better way to introduce children to the beauty of language and the power of story than to put down that book, look our students in the eyes, and tell a story. Storytelling is more than just entertainment, as we know. It is a pow- erful educational tool for the classroom or the library media center. Ev- eryone loves a good story, and stories are the perfect vehicles for teaching and learning. TEACHING VIA STORYTELLING First, and foremost, storytelling is an art form that nurtures the spirit Ellin Greene, in Storytelling: Art & Technique, says it best: Storytelling brings to the listeners heightened awareness a sense of wonder, of mystery, of reverence for life. This nurturing of the spirit-self comes first. It is the primary purpose of storytelling and all other uses and effects are second- ary (33). When we tell stories that have an inherent truth, we are feeding our students truth about living and about being human. Stories help us to develop compassion, understanding, and a sense of connectedness and the unity of life. Stories help us to see beyond our world into other worlds and into the hearts of other people. Stories help us to connect with a humanity that is bigger than we are as individuals. Storytelling deepens the relationship between teacher and students. I be- lieve that I have profoundly changed the nature of the relationship be- tween my students and me simply because I tell them stories. I first began to use stories with activities years ago, when I went to a fourth-grade teacher and offered to come to her classroom for 45 minutes once a week for a storytelling experiment. Over the next two months, I told stories and the children retold them, drew pictures, created a picture book, made a slide show, and did other activities to extend the stories beyond the telling. Over the course of those weeks, I began to notice that the children and I reacted to each other in a different way. When I saw them in the hallway or in the library, we smiled at each other as if we shared a secret, for storytelling, potentially one of the most powerful, intimate experiences available, had truly brought us closer together. Children trust someone who tells something truthful. The edu- cator who tells stories is actually giving a rare gift the gift of himself or herself. Only you can tell stories the way you do. Only you can pick the stories you do for the reasons that you do. We tell the stories that we love, that our hearts reverberate to, that our psyches respond to. We are truly sharing of ourselves with our students, if we choose our stories carefully and prepare them with integrity. It is also a great risk for us as tellers, for we are putting out in public something that is very meaningful without that book as our crutch to come between us and 6 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE our audience. But like many risks, it is an activity that is ultimately self-affirming, and we are richer for having taken the risk. Storytelling enhances imagination and visualization. It is a creative ex- perience for all for the teller, who must create a mood and a vision of the story, and for the listener, who must create the images and the under- standings. The important work is done in the listeners' minds. This is where the story really comes to life. Students have to work for the story to be meaningful, yet it is work that is done effortlessly. The listening is active, not passive. I may select a story for my own personal reasons, but my listeners may take something completely different away and they may take different things at different times of their lives. I cannot control what their lessons are, nor do I want to. Storytelling provides food for fantasy, which encourages creativity, originality, and flexibility. It gives us material for daydreaming, for work- ing out our own anxieties, for imagining and wondering. We need this imagination to survive. The information age is here, but we need more than information. We need wisdom. Stories give us the material to de- velop that wisdom. Storytelling introduces children to literature and the beauty of language. Vocabulary is extended and patterns of language show us the joyful play- fulness of words. Using a rhythmic pattern has students immediately join- ing in a decided difference from my more inhibited adult audiences! This language is especially meaningful to students because the stories are so meaningful. When I tell a story that comes from a book that our media center owns, there is an immediate rush for that book and a long list of reserves. Children are eager to see the story in print and to experience it again through reading. Of course, storytelling also introduces students to the joy of literature even when they are unable to read. Storytelling enhances reading and uniting skills. Through listening to many stories, children develop a sense of story. They learn that stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories have a problem and a resolution. There are characters and a setting. This familiarity with story structure helps students to know what to expect when they are reading, to better understand it when they meet it, and to recall it better after the story is over. Children who know story structure are armed with a power- ful tool in their own writing efforts and they will innately understand what a story needs. Storytelling develops listening skills. These are skills in active listening, an experience where minds must produce images and the child must pro- vide some effort to get the reward of the experience. Students develop concentration and the ability to follow a sequence. They learn to focus and attend, even in the middle of a busy media center. One of my favorite times of the year is the annual telling of "Mr. Fox" to our fifth-grade classes. In the story, Mary, the main character, has SrilMOJIMA/ SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER 7 stumbled upon the home of Mr. Fox, her wealthy but mysterious suitor. Mr. Fox is not at home, but Mary, curious and bold, decides to explore the house when the front door opens at her knock. Upstairs, she opens Mr. Fox's bedroom closet door to discover, to her horror, one huge vat of human hair, one of human bones, and a third of blood. She runs down the stairs only to see, through the window, Mr. Fox coming toward the house dragging a young woman. Quickly, Mary hides in the space under the stairwayjust seconds before Mr. Fox enters the house and starts up the stairway. When the young woman grasps the stair railing, he pulls out his sword and cuts off her hand at the wrist a hand that falls into Mary's lap and the room is silent and every single fifth-grader is listening! Storytelling introduces students to the world and other cultures. Every country has a rich heritage of story. All over the world we find the same themes of love, loss, betrayal, and journeying on the quest. We meet trick- sters in every culture, as well as silly folk, wise elders, brave heroes and heroines, and evil villains. We find that we are not alone in this world. We see where we fit in to the wonderful diversity of human life. Folklore is every child's heritage the history of humankind in stories. It is a way to celebrate our human similarities and our cultural differences at the same time. A STORY FOR EVERY OPPORTUNITY I never pass up an opportunity to use storytelling at school. Whether it is ghost stories at Halloween, a frog story during a unit on amphibians, coaching fifth-graders learning legends during a Native American unit, using stories with creative drama and creative writing, or during our six- week second-grade unit on folk and fairy tales, there is always time for a story. Children would rather listen to a story than do almost anything else in the media center, and frankly, I would rather be telling a story than almost anything else! But I am careful to provide times for storytelling without activities children need times just for the sheer pleasure of hear- ing a good story. In kindergarten, I start off by telling very simple stories, ideally with lots of characters but extremely simple plots. "The Great Big Enormous Turnip" is the first. I tell the story, then invite the children to act it out. We repeat the story as many times as needed to give everyone a chance (hence the large number of characters required) . Of course, another option is to choose stories with fewer characters and let students know that they will have a chance to act in the future, if not today. As I am asking, "Who wants to be Grandpa? Who wants to be the dog?," the stu- dents' hands are waving wildly and they are eager to jump up and take a part. I tell the story again, but stop whenever it is time for a character to speak and the children jump in with their lines. Having a repetitious story ensures that the children will remember their parts with ease. 8 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE In every grade level, primary through intermediate, drawing a pic- ture of the most memorable part or the favorite part is a valuable activity. I love to see the pictures that my students have created in their minds and to know what made the most impression on them. Sometimes I give them paper that has been folded into three parts so that they can draw pictures from the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. Rewriting stories requires students to listen closely, recall events in a sequence, and use the vocabulary of the story. It also requires stories that are very, very short, with no repetition at all. Rewriting stories can be very tiresome if something has to be repeated over and over. Our first session is a joint one, where I tell a story and then invite the children to retell it as a class while I type it into a computer that is displayed on a screen so that they can follow along. If two classes retell the same story, I give copies of each to each teacher and invite them to post both in the room, so that students can see how the retellings produced different versions. In later stories, students will rewrite a story individually immediately after the tell- ing. I will also invite the children to change details in the story as they put it into their own words. We discuss what elements can be changed (e.g., gender of characters) and what cannot (e.g., the ending). We decide the point of the story. What is the theme of the story? What is this story really about? The room is dead quiet as the children are writing. Our six-week folk and fairy tale unit in second grade is made possible by the flexible schedule that allows each class to come to the media center every day for six weeks. During week one, we focus on fairy tales, with a telling every day followed by students filling out a story map. The six sections in the story map are protagonist, setting, initial action, antago- nist, problem, and resolution. A lesson on 398.2 (the Dewey designation for folk and fairy tales) helps each student to find a book to carry to the classroom for the class collection. Week two focuses on Cinderella vari- ants, starting with the classic Grimms' version. Children think they know the story, but they are surprised by this version that is so different from the Disney one, with its helpful birds, cut up feet, and wicked stepsisters being soundly punished. Story maps are still being filled out to reinforce children's familiarity with the basic story structure. Week three focuses on folktales from different continents, with notable picture books read aloud every day. During the fourth week, the telling of folktales from different countries each day is followed by an activity: drawing a picture and writing sentences describing the scene; retelling the story as a class as I type it into the computer; working with a partner to put strips of the story into correct sequence; drawing pictures of the beginning, middle, and end of the story; and drawing a map of the story, one in which the action occurs in many places. One whole-class activity is the creation of a picture book. A long story is chosen because it must be divided into at least as many scenes as there SHIMOJIMA/ SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER 9 are students in the class. After the telling, I invite the children to recall the story. Key words from each scene are written on a sheet of paper, one scene per page. Then the scenes are assigned to the children, each tak- ing one or two, depending on the number of children. They take the papers to the classroom where they will each write the narration for the scenes. A day or two later, we gather together again and the scenes are read aloud in order. We check to make sure that nothing is left out and nothing repeated. I encourage them to be descriptive and to include dialogue. After a final edit, I type the pages. The children illustrate them and the entire book is duplicated so that each child has his or her own copy. The final activity is the "Battle of the Folktales." The students write practice questions (In what story did a girl receive help from a fish? How do you get to Mother Holle's house?) and the teachers hold class battles. The final battle is in the media center with representatives from each class on each team, to minimize the competitive factor. It is an exciting finish to a unit that results in every child truly loving stories. During our third-grade "Jack Tale" unit, we add on the activity of re- telling in a circle. After the telling, I seat the children in a big circle and start off the story again. After a few sentences I stop and turn to the next child, who continues the telling until I say stop. We continue around the circle until the story is retold. This is a great way to invite children to tell without the pressure of having to remember an entire story. During this unit we create a video of a story. It follows the same pro- cedure as the making of a picture book, with each child responsible for one or two scenes. This time the children each draw pictures of their scenes on a piece of 12-inch by 18-inch paper. They write the narration to their scenes and I videotape the drawings while they read their writing off-camera. This has become one of the most popular of all storytelling activities and students are encouraged to borrow the video to show their families at home. Our mythology/ astronomy unit in fourth grade provides another opportunity to bring storytelling into the curriculum. I put up a transpar- ency of a constellation and tell the Greek myth behind the constellation. The students will then each choose a constellation, make a transparency of it, and tell the corresponding myth to the class while showing the trans- parency. I've seen some amazing examples of student storytelling during this unit. More student storytelling is encouraged during the fifth-grade unit on Native Americans. Each student is required to find, learn, and tell a Native American legend and also create a picture book of the story. I meet with the students in small groups to coach them. Two meetings per group, a week apart, are necessary at a minimum. Later they will tell their 10 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE stories to younger children as they give their presentations on Native American culture. These are only some of the many ideas that could be used to bring storytelling into the curriculum, either in the classroom or media center. Whatever ideas you choose, the rewards are great. If you've been reading stories aloud, you are already halfway there. My training in timing and expression came from the hundreds of picture books I read aloud over the years. It took only one time of putting the book down, looking into my students' eyes, and seeing their rapt attention to turn me into a be- liever in the power of storytelling. Above all, enjoy yourself. Have fun! Wrap your story with love and give it as a gift. Your students will love you for it. Editor's Note: A listing of references and resources, including a folktale unit-fllan for teaching second-graders, is included in the appendix of this volume. WORKS CITED Greene, Ellin. Storytelling: Art & Technique. 3rd ed. New Providence: R. R. Bowker, 1996. Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus, and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1976. KAREN MORGAN Instructor Graduate School of Library and Information Science Founder, STORYTELL listserv Texas Woman's University Tangled in the Web: Storytelling, Communication, and Controversy Do you have time for adventure, have an interest in storytelling, and have access to a computer equipped with a modem, Web browser, phone line, and an ISP (Internet Service Provider)? If you have answered "yes," then adventure awaits: exploring storytelling in cyberspace. Let me give you a feel for the possibilities of cyberspace exploration by introducing three quite different cyberspace adventurers, all of whom share a love of storytelling. We'll begin with an octogenarian from a retirement community in Arizona, who used to count among his favorite activities both mountain climbing and accompanying his wife to storytelling festivals. Today his mobility is severely limited, but he still enjoys traveling to storytelling fes- tivals through festival Web sites as he sits in front of his bedroom com- puter. Four years ago, he told his son he'd never have use for a "fancy" computer and modem; now he's found new ways to communicate and to explore the world from home. He even gets his youngest grandchild in- volved in Web browsing. They rank highly the Web site of the Smithsonian ^Magazine, which features an article on the National Storytelling" Festival (Watson) and includes colorful graphics, photos of tellers, and a record- ing of Don Davis telling a story. Web site visitors can either listen to Davis' entire (30-minute) story or to shorter audio clips. (A visitor who has never previously explored audio on the Web will find complete instructions on free downloading of the RealPlayer for audio.) Next let's travel to south Texas, where an energetic young teacher involves her fifth-grade class in a unit on storytelling by having them pose questions to the subscribers of STORYTELL, the Internet listserv (a dis- cussion group carried by electronic mait)~Ttedicated to dialogue about storytelling. The students get caught up in the excitement of the Internet's interactivity and the involvement of people, notjust from the United States 12 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE but from around the world. These potential future tellers engage with their elders in the sharing of information and advice. The listserv mem- bers who become involved with this topic (or thread, in the language of the Internet) are strong storytelling advocates who appear eager to men- tor the youngsters. Their teacher's enthusiasm for storytelling keeps her open to postings on the listserv of new activities and new stories for the students. In the summer of 1997, several of this teacher's fifth graders were invited to tell at a state-wide, educational conference on storytelling and impressed conference attendees with their story selections and skill in telling. My final cyberspace adventurer is a busy Californian, a part-time youth services librarian and part-time teller, whose morning fix involves drink- ing the day's first cup of coffee while reading recent postings on Internet listservs and newsgroups. She often clicks her Web browser to the homepages of other tellers to see updates on their sites. Participating in forums devoted to storytelling renews her connections with others who care as much as she does for this ancient art form. It matters to her that she contributes to the ongoing dialogue about storytelling in cyber-space, and she has found herself particularly drawn to the controversies of cen- sorship and story ownership. Told more than once that she could not tell stories that included mention of witches, spirits, or devils, this woman may click to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Free- dom Web page or follow ALAOIF, the American Library Association's Of- fice of Intellectual Freedom listserv. For storytellers, story listeners, and lovers of stories, becoming tangled in the Web involves as many opportunities and ensnarements as there are interested individuals. The Internet has locations which provide recom- mended stories for specific occasions or projects, traditional story open- ings and closings, articles on and about diverse storytelling topics, and a variety of full-text versions of stories, legends, tall tales, and even story jokes, riddles, and tongue twisters. The information may be provided directly in the archives of an Internet listserv, at a particular Web site or through hypertext links (highlighted textor^graphics) to many other Web Pages- Threads on listservs such ^s STORYTELL dtr\FOLKLORE/-or on Usenet newsgroups (open electronic discussion rbfunrsT^such as alt.arts. storytelling, alt.folklore.info, of alt.folklore. urban may provide stories and information not readily available elsewhere. Since STORYTELL's announced purpose, from its creation in January of 1995, was to be a tool for sustaining and supporting the interests and needs of lovers of the oral tradition and^fstSr^tellers around the world at all levels of interests and abilities, it ha never be^n used as a vehicle by individuals who want feedback on their writing skilfy as alt.arts. storytelling often is. More than other listservs or groups, STORYl EEL hasbecome the "home" MORGAN/TANGLED IN THE WEB 13 on the Internet for storytellers. In my informal survey of the STORYTELL archives, I encountered numerous contributions to a wide variety of dis- cussion threads, including discussions of STORYTELL itself. In May of 1997, one listserv subscriber stated, "STORYTELL is an international as- sociation" (Miller). It is a popular and active list, often with 50 or more messages a day, and has been active since it was established by the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University. It had over 270 subscribers five months after its creation and today maintains a consistent list of about 400. This number includes individuals as well as library and other institutional subscribers. The ongoing and sometimes heated discussions, as well as the ex- change of stories, on STORYTELL and other cybergroups may redefine what it means to be a storyteller today and could possibly be responsible for reshaping storytelling organizations tomorrow. The open and wide- ranging discussions that have been on-going in cyberspace for the past three years chart a different course from the past. First, the conversations have been free and open to everyone able to access cyberspace. Next, all participants have equal voice and equal opportunity to participate in dis- cussions, raising issues as they see fit, not according to a large organization's agenda. Because there is no structured hierarchy in cyberspace dialogue, more voices are heard and more issues continue to be raised and debated in an open forum than ever before. Finally, the communication and col- laboration among diverse people concerned with storytelling from around the world have raised the awareness and consciousness of all on a variety of issues. Some of the debates on STORYTELL have featured "...intriguing ideas and sometimes tedious hair-splitting" (Schmidt). Discussions have cov- ered such complex issues as censorship of stories by others and by deliber- ate omission, story ownership, copyright, and the ethics of storytelling. Participants have weighed in on such diverse topics as storytellers' health concerns, which include dehydration, exhaustion, and voice protection; stage presence, who has it, and how it can be developed; and the business of storytelling, such as establishing fees, using microphones, and writing mission statements, brochures, and contracts. Questions, comments, sug- gestions, and criticisms are raised about techniques, style, and story attri- butions of nationally famous tellers. Additionally, criticism has been lev- eled at local organizations and national associations which exist to sup- port storytelling. Sacred cows have been discussed, poked, prodded, and sometimes butchered and barbecued. Activity in the real world has fol- lowed that in the virtual world: two years after subscribers to STORYTELL spent many months debating definitions of storytelling and what it means to be a storyteller, a committee of the National Storytelling Association took up the issue. This committee is now attempting to come up with some nationally accepted definitions. Conversations in cyberspace may 14 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE stimulate and provoke in multiple directions, even providing inspiration for some to create stories or tell differently or simply to keep telling sto- ries. (All messages posted to STORYTELL can be found in its archives, housed on the Texas Woman's University Web site, and can be searched from remote sites by keywords or downloaded in bundles organized chro- nologically) . Part of STORYTELL's success lies in its sustained focus on the subject of storytelling with continuous conversations in cyberspace among regu- lar contributors and virtual passers-by. Participants say that the structured conversations have enriched their lives and acted as a powerful profes- sional development tool. The importance of listservs like STORYTELL can be best expressed by participants. Sharon Johnson said, "Personally, I feel that it is a wonderful means of communication for kindred spirits, a way to learn more about various aspects of storytelling, a method for help- ing others, and a discussion mechanism for issues and ideas of major and minor importance." Elizabeth Gibson added that, for herself, STORYTELL had brought "joy in the ease of real-time communication with a number of people," and, she continued, "I can read and take part in some very interesting discussions on storytelling issues. The discussions do not al- ways agree, but they give air to some of the concerns, ideas, and diverse points of view. ... it is just nice to know that there are others out there facing the same lions you are." Said Lois Sprengnether, "STORYTELL and FOLKLORE both give access to source material and resource people I need, whether it's finding a lost story, or exercises to use with a group of student storytellers, or just that great on-going feeling of camaraderie that says I'm not alone." Another aspect of participation in STORYTELL is revealed in Chuck Larkin's comments: "I have been performing now for 25 years. I have a responsibility to pass on knowledge to the next genera- tion of tellers. The Internet allows me to read current issues and to both pass on my experience and pick up new nuggets of knowledge. This pro- vides for a rapid exchange of information with more people and for less expense then any other form of communication covering the same num- ber of participants" (Johnson). The reading of listserv messages goes on at all hours of the day and night: one person in front of his/her own computer screen, accessing messages, one at a time, all over the world. Normally this is a solitary act, yet paradoxically it is also a public one. The act of reading these messages deepens connections with others concerned about storytelling in the larger world. Jaye McLaughlin, a public librarian for the city of Fort Worth, Texas, explains that she particularly appreciates STORYTELL because of the "international input and questions which keep our limited outlook from here in the U.S. expanding" (Conversation). Surprising to some, especially in light of contentious debates on the list, a spirit of coopera- MORGAN/TANGLED IN THE WEB 15 tion, collaboration, and community has developed among users of STORYTELL. Some subscribers frequently post to the list, others "lurk" and never post public messages. Yet all seem to carry on "side conversa- tions"; subscribers send e-mail messages off-list to continue discussions begun on the list, to congratulate someone on a comment or entire mes- sage well-phrased, to ask a question privately, and much more. An inter- esting phenomenon has occurred among subscribers to STORYTELL: some frequently post announcements of upcoming events, others an- nounce intentions to attend, and later meetings at events are arranged. People who have only known each other through e-mail begin to meet face-to-face; networking begun in cyberspace continues in person. STORYTELLers (as list members call themselves) regularly make arrange- ments to meet at festivals and workshops. Since most don't know one another by sight but only through their participation on the storytelling listserv, they wear neon-colored pins or badges that say "STORYTELL-er" for purposes of identification. TACTICS TO UNTANGLE THE WEB When you get tangled in the Web, is it difficult to unearth available storytelling sites, activities, and resources? How do you keep on top of changes? Although, as professionals, we know we need to stay abreast of new developments, we also know that change is constant and remains an integral component of the Internet/Web world. Knowing how to search rather than exact places to search is of key importance. This necessitates experimenting with different ways to search, which means coming to know and even love search engines. These devices enable us to deal with the nearly 100 million pages that are on the Web today (Cuvelier 59). The sheer volume of information can be staggering. Creating "bookmarks" or keeping a list of URLs (Universal Resource Locators) of Web pages and Internet resources may help, but familiar locations may suddenly move, disappear, or become temporarily inaccessible. If the secret of success is how well we deal with "Plan B" after "Plan A" fails, we better have such contingency plans available when our "search-strands" become tangled. Since there exists no centralized catalog of Internet/Web resources avail- able and no one single place to find what you need, searchers need to remain flexible. Search engines such as Yahoo!, Lycos, Excite, Alta Vista and Infoseek help organize the chaos. All the search engines operate somewhat differently, so spending time becoming familiar with each can be considered time well spent. Respect their differences and use various ones according to your purposes and your students' needs. Yahoo!, for example, provides results in matches divided by categories, such as arts," entertainment, and science, and includes Web pages, listservs and their archives, Usenet newsgroups, events, and more. All the search engines 16 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE can be accessed for free while exploring the Web. Purchasing one or more of the various published guides to Web sites may help student searching. Copyright date is of tremendous importance; buy the most current edition of such guides as Most Popular Web Sites: The Best of the Net from A2Z. Searching the archives of major universities and folklore collections can result in grand adventures of discovery for Internet/Web explorers. Let's say you want to tell a story which comes from your deepest Southern roots. Unifying the story with a song of which you only have a fragmen- tary memory may be a challenge that you want to take up. Your informa- tion is sketchy with regard to the song, yet you feel it would add an impor- tant dimension to your story. You know only that the song involves "riding the rails." You also remember that your mama's second cousin used to sing it, and he was a hobo during the Great Depression. You ask yourself if you can find the song, fit it with your story, and make all the compo- nents work. Can exploring in cyberspace help? Maybe. There may be an exact fit or just an adventure in the search. Try going to the Web pages of the c .Southern Folklife Collection, where you'll find information about gospel and spiritual songs, Southeastern blues traditions, or links to Doc Watson's page to hear him perform "Blue Railroad Train." This may work, or there may be other answers for you still to be drawn from the tangled Web of Internet sources. This approach may work in building story reper- toire or creating curriculum tie-ins at all grade levels. Imagine interested students carrying out assignments involving history, literature, and music as they search the Web, constructing meaning through the text and mul- timedia to be found there. There are large numbers of locations from which to start cyberspace adventuring. Harvard University, for example, maintains an extensive list of links to folklore archives, folklore journals, folklore societies (both pa- per and electronic), folklore publishers, information guides, and other web sites. One link from the Harvard site of particular interest to anyone working with students from kindergarten through high school is the AskEric InfoGuide: Folk and Fairy Tales. Another valuable source for stories on the Web is Th,e Children '^Litera- ture Web Guide. Look at its Folklore, Myth, and Legend page. With its many links to other locations on the Web, this impressive site facilitates ongoing searches. From here you can connect to folklore reference sources such as "the Encyclopedia Mythica for information on legendary creatures, monsters, and the gods and goddesses of world mythology. Anyone inter- ested in working on comparative studies of Cinderella variants can find links to variants of tale type 510A on The Children's Literature Web Guide, as well as other links to a text and image archive of English-language Cinderellas, published between 1729 and 1912. Kay Vandergrift's fine MORGAN/TANGLED IN THE WEB 17 Web site on Snow White has its own link here. Other links connect to traditional stories from Sioux to Sufi traditions, to Aesop's fables, and to the literary tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Resources on the Web can help enrich students' assigned work. Of- ten, school writing assignments are orally presented when they are in their final form; this presents opportunities for us to suggest storytelling tech- niques as a method of story creation or the use of storytelling skills in the actual oral presentation. Today more (wise) teachers are collaborating with each other and with their librarians. They instruct students in the use of storytelling techniques to select, learn, frame, and tell stories bet- ter. Not surprisingly, teachers find they are receiving better "final prod- ucts" after this exposure and perhaps some storytelling coaching. Why not take this one or two steps further? Try persuading social studies and English teachers to work with students on developing and telling family stories that are infused with history-based details. Some of these family stories may be set against the backdrop of larger historical events. Focus on these stories adds value to the individual's and family's experiential circumstances. Librarians could help in the crafting of stories and serve as adviser to Web searching for the purpose of adding accurate period details. Information can be pulled from such Web sites as The Sixties or The Vietnam War History Page to become part of the students' stories. Stu- dents who want to tell of their grandparents' (or great-grandparents') Holocaust experiences during World War II should find the Web site of the United States Holocaust Museum invaluable. A museum that uses story exquisitely, its site includes annotated videos, transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials, photographic archives, and much more. Also effective for use with students may be an article on "Jelling Farnily^ Stories," which can be down- loaded from the Web site of storyteller Miriam Nadel. For the adults work- ing with student storytellers, some of the articles on storyteller and coach Doug Lipman's Web pages may be of service. Some teachers and librarians may want to explore connections be- tween storytelling, readers' theater, or drama with their students. The Web can link students to theater sites as well as provide readers' theater scripts. Teachers may find useful ERIC InfoGuides and lesson plans for creative dramatics. Barry McWilliam's Elderbarry's Storytelling Home Page has links to all this, plus links to a detailed definition of storytelling by Chuck Larkin and connections to many professional organizations and to other storytellers' Web sites, which leads to more entangled links. Simi- larly generous in the amount of information made available is Doug v Lhomanjj3Veb site, which includes Janice Del Negro's "Recent Storytelling Titles," other bibliographies, and articles on performing, stimulating stu- dent story creation, telling to children, and the coaching of storytellers. Put the phrase "storytelling ring" into a search engine like Alta Vista and 18 STORY: FROM FIREPLACE TO CYBERSPACE get an electronic version of that old library standby, the pathfinder, an annotated list of books (in this case, Web sites) linked by theme and topic (in this case, storytelling and storytellers). The Internet and the Web have grown exponentially in the past few years. Much of this growth is a result of word of mouth. (Storytellers, in particular, should easily be able to relate to this type of growth.) People become involved and committed to Internet use. It becomes an integral part of their lives just as it has with the three cyberspace explorers at the beginning of this piece. There is no doubt about the positive correlation of optimistic opinions among those who love storytelling and use the Internet and the Web. Their advice would be simple for storytellers, for lovers of storytelling, and for devotees of the oral tradition contemplating entangling themselves in the web of cyberspace. E-mail, you gotta have it! A storytelling listserv, you gotta have it! Access to storytelling Web sites, you gotta have it! As youth services professionals, even if you've been put off by the hype, frustrated by the constant change, challenged by the cen- sors, troubled by the lack of access and financial strain, and distressed by the misinformation or the lack of documentation, you need to utilize the Internet and the Web to communicate, to defend your views, to make a difference, and to shape storytelling as we enter the twenty-first century. Ken Nickerson, in charge of Microsoft Network Canada, recently stated in an interview that "the content teams for the Internet. . . have program- mers and artists, and now we've added the storyteller. . . [I]n the interac- tive world, storytelling is fundamentally critical, and we find ourselves with very few storytellers on the planet. And that's a shame, because storytelling is the future" (Randall 331). Editor's Note: Texas Woman's University's STORYTELL archives can be accessed by the URL http://www.twu.edu/lists/ and then selecting STORYTELL from the lists and searching by keyword. STOR YTELL quotes are used by permission; all efforts were made to contact participants. WORKS CITED American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom. Home page. 8 June 1998. . American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom. "Subscribing to ALAOIF and Other Listservs." 8 June 1998. Archives of T\VU Discussion Lists. Texas Woman's University. 8 June 1998. . AskERIC InfoGuide: Folk and Fairy Tales. 8 June 1998. . The Children's Literature Web Guide. "Folklore, Myth and Legend." Ed. David K. Brown. 8 June 1998. . Cuvelier, Monique. "How to find Web sites?" PC Novice Guide to Netscape 5 (1997): 58-59. Doc Watson-American Folk Music Legend. Ed. Donna Cornick. 8 June 1998. . MORGAN/TANGLED IN THE WEB 19 The Encyclopedia Mythica. Ed. M. F. Lindemans. 8 June 1998. . Folklore and Mythology World Wide Web Sites. Harvard University. 8 June 1998. . Johnson, Sharon. "Why This Listserv is Important." On-line posting. 24 October 1995. STORYTELL. 8 June 1998. . Lipman, Doug. Home page. 8 June 1998. . Miller, Eric. "Storytelling Studies." On-line posting. 24 May 1997. STORYTELL. SJune 1998. . Miriam Nadel's Storytelling Page. "Telling Family Stories." Ed. Miriam Nadel. SJune 1998. . Most Popular Web Sites: The Best of the Net from A2Z. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Lycos Press, 1997. Schmidt, Judy. "Bravo!" On-line posting. 13 February 1996. STORYTELL. SJune 1998. . The Sixties. SC Foundation. SJune 1998. . Southern Folklife Collection. Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 8 June 1998. . STORYTELL Discussion List Archives. Texas Woman's University. SJune 1998. . Vietnam War History Page. Class project, Virginia Tech University, . The Storytelling Ring. Ed. Kerry Mens. SJune 1998.