New Jersey Storytelling Festival Workshops

The New Jersey Storytelling Festival offers two workshops annually—one to polish storytelling skills and one to add pizzazz to educators’ toolboxes. Here’s a recap of the 2015 workshops to whet your appetite for more in 2016.

Balladeer and teller Mike Agranoff shared his recipe for recitation of narrative poetry spoken aloud from memory (Think “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer or “The Mary Gloster” by Rudyard Kipling).He demonstrated and coached how to deliver a piece in style, not by rote.

One of Mike’s tips: speak the poem’s lines as a whole thought in a full sentence, not as the line breaks on a printed page.

Librarian, author, storyteller, and program presenter Carol Simon Levin offered themed suggestions for the school year with books and stories specifically related to the Common Core, plus a list of resources and websites, to get the classroom conversation going.

One of Carol’s tips: instantly turn flannel pieces into hanging signs for kids to wear using plastic paper protector sleeves with stiff paper inserts and yarn ribbon to hang around each child's neck.

We’ll be announcing the workshops for September 18 soon. Stay tuned!

If you have questions about our Festival workshops, please contact us here.