Collecting Stories
Finding Folk Tales
You have storytelling treasure waiting to be found. Collect traditional tales, in whole or in part, from friends, family, and community members. Find them at family gatherings, festivals, in your own backyard. Use these hints to help you collect a few folklore gems to use in your home, class, library, and beyond.
Use bait
Share songs, objects, visuals, sayings and more to jog memories. Try telling a tale of a familiar character or a popular type of tale, to remind listeners of stories they have heard. If you, as a teacher or tutor, are new to the culture you are collecting from, then learn as much as you can first about the culture behind the stories: the history, values, the important folk characters and favorite tales, etc.
Piece together the parts
Often you may find only fragments of stories remembered by people, not entire tales. So, carefully take down those parts and later you may be able to fill in the blanks after talking to others. Or gather several people who might know similar stories together, to help each other remember.
Record well
When you or students gather tales, try to use a tape recorder. If you don’t have one, or if people object to them, then take careful notes as the story unfolds. Questions are best kept until the teller is finished with a story, for once a person takes on the role of storyteller, they enter into a different space.
Finding Family Stories
While collecting traditional tales takes time, everyone can remember a few personal experience stories, and most people enjoy telling them. Sharing such tales helps students to value their own lives and heritage, too. Let students draw images to help them remember a few stories. Have them choose their favorite to practice and tell. After telling, they can write down the tale or dictate to a willing scribe. Please visit Family Stories for more ideas and a list of common story themes.
Here are two short true stories from third graders: Sarah G and Danielle. Have fun as you remember and share your true treasures.
Last Fourth of July, my family was watching fireworks. An especially loud one went off and I said, “That scared the heck out of me!” Well, my little brother copies me a lot, only sometimes he mixes up the words. So after the next big firecracker he said, “That scared me out of the heck!”
Once when my brother was nine, he decided to make cookies. He had never made cookies in his life. He opened the cookbook and started. When it came to the part where he had to add egg whites, he picked up some cracked egg shells. He was sure that egg whites meant white egg shells. When everyone had the cookies later, they were very, very, very crunchy. When people finally figured out why they were so crunchy, everyone laughed and laughed. My brother didn’t make cookies again for a long, long time!