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Boardman stiudents learn tools for storytelling at "Right to Read Week" event
BOARDMAN
Building a story is like building a house, Market Street Elementary School students learned Thursday.
“To build a house you need tools,” said guest storyteller Tim Hartman. “It’s the same way with a story.”
For the next hour, Hartman regaled students with a story that not only kept them laughing and attentive but taught them how to build stories of their own.
This week all of Boardman’s elementary schools had programming designed to promote reading and writing for “Right to Read Week,” which wraps up today.
“We’re trying to get children to have a better imagination so they write better. It’s not just about reading,” said Jim Stitt, Market Street Elementary principal.
“It’s things like this that gets kids to want to come to school,” he said. “We want students to become the storytellers and put it down in writing.”
The first storytelling “tool” Hartman helped students understand was characters.
“Anything can be a character,” said Hartman in a deep, booming voice, taking off his shoe and using it as a puppet as students laughed uproariously.
Hartman’s story featured Johnny Pancakes as the main character, and Johnny’s girlfriend Evette.
Standing on a stage in the school cafeteria, Hartman told students a love story between the two characters.
“And they lived happily ever after,” he said, much to the confusion of his audience. They screamed “No!” when he asked if he should end the story there.
“When you make a story, you can’t just use one tool – characters,” he explained. “Every story you have ever read has a conflict.”
From there, he wove a tale of Johnny’s quest to find common sense and a fortune so that Evette would marry him. Throughout the story, Hartman used props and asked for students to participate.
After Hartman and the crowd wrapped up with a final, “And they all lived happily every after,” he encouraged them to tell their own stories.
“One day your teacher is going to walk into your classroom and say, ‘Today class, we’re going to write a story,’” he said.
“If you have the right tools, writing your own story is a lot more fun than you know.”