Fables

For next week - you will be given a quiz on the first 127 pages of Ruth Sawyer "The Way of the Storyteller." Be ready!

Tonight we began a few notes related to the reading assignment comparing the 3 stories:

Eros & Psyche
Beauty & The Beast
East of the Sun and West of the Moon

I presented the ideas of "spelling" and "combinatorics." When we spell a word (example "art" "rat" "tar") we work with a limited set of letters to create a limitless set of ideas. The 3 words referenced above are created from the same 3 letters arranged into different combinations. The art of spelling is the art of making the right combination of elements to create the "spell." In this sense, spelling is a magical act. The right combination yields the right spell. In the same way that different words are spelled with the same letters, different stories can be "spelled" with the same motifs.

We then discussed the 4 fables:
The Tortoise & Hare
The Goose With Golden Eggs
The Fox & Grapes
The Man, Boy & Donkey

We did an exercise with Tim and Ali looking out the door and telling us what they saw in the hallway. the hallway was always the same, but the tellings were very different. The way the storyteller "sees" the stories results in different tellings.

Concepts from Kieran Egan ("Teaching As Storytelling")
Binary Organization: setting up opposites in the creation of the story: slow v. fast, old v. young, proud v. humble, etc.

Affective Hook: involve the emotions and feelings in order to involve the mind: create a feeling for the the pride of the Hare or the greed of the farmer, the thirst of the fox, etc.. (We had a strong example in discussing the free pancakes at IHOP as a motivation for the man with the golden eggs!)

We played the game of "What is it?" with a marking pen.

Discussion: Syntax of Surprise = Huh? Ah!