Title: How do you become a storyteller?
Course: Anglès 4t ESO 1r T > Section: Unit 3

The history of storytelling

The history of storytelling goes back thousands of years, when humans lived in caves and painted on walls with their hands to tell stories and create myths about the world. According to Jonathan Gottschall, the human mind can't stand uncertainty and it doesn’t like to believe life is accidental; it wants to believe everything happens for a reason and so, stories allow us to set order on the chaos!

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

The prehistoric peoples told stories about fighting mammoths, lions and rhinos. Their cave paintings depicted their every day activities of using homemade weapons to survive in a dangerous world, like the ones we can see at Lascaux and Chauvet in France, at Altamira in Spain and at Creswell Crags in the UK. Later, the ancient peoples, who were passionate about the art of storytelling, moved a step forward and turned their oral stories into written epic poems to help the storytellers remember and perform those long stories about warriors, kings and Gods, like the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, carved in stone, the Indian Mahabharata, the longest epic poem ever written, the Greek Iliad and The Odyssey or the Old English Beowulf.

Over the next several centuries, the art of oral storytelling showed multiple faces: from the troubadors, to the first fairy tales for children by Madame d'Aulnoy in France or the great plays written by William Shakespeare to be performed on stage for lots of people who still couldn't read. But, when the print was invented, everything changed! The first newspapers shook the world: real life stories for everyone everyday! The printed photo had even a bigger impact on storytelling with the arrival of printed magazines and books. A bit later, the invention of storytelling machines like the radio and the movies started a new era until the TV sneaked into the households all over the planet - stories 24h a day! together with interactive video game consoles and music videos. That made stroytelling big business!

Now, in the computer age, with internet and web video we have the perfect storm: through social media everyone can tell their stories to the world. In the 21st century, social media is a time capsule for all humankind: having a social media account means you have access to see everyone's past-present-future life without actually being there and to tell everyone your real or fake stories, too.

Stop & Think: Can you summarize the history of storytelling in an image?

1. Draw a timeline with the most important milestones in the history of stroytelling. Use the information from the text and search for extra information on the internet, if necessary. For example, this online article by Melissa Mendoza on Reporter Magazine. Don't forget to add relevant dates and periods! Do you know what the acronyms B.C. and A.D after a year mean? Insert your timeline in My learner Diary 3 or My Basic Ideas 3.
2. Use a dictionary for the most difficult words in the text and add a new entry in the Glossary 3 for at least THREE different words you have learnt. Click the folder Writing Guides and read the guide on How to write a Glossary.

What is narrative poetry?

So far we have seen that storytelling is as ancient as humanity and that it all began with epic poems about warriors, kings and Gods, at a time when many people did not know how to read and write. So, stories were told rhythmically, with repetition and rhymes and so, what was important to the culture could be remembered and passed down through the generations.

Epic poems are an example of narrative poetry together with romance, ballads, ydills and lays, and what they all have in common is that:

- these poems always tell a story  - fiction or nonfiction -,
- they have the same components a regular story has: characters, setting, problem and solution,
- there is always a beginning, a middle and an end.

But to make it a poem and not just a story, narrative poems have to use literary elements such as rhyme, rhythm and stanzas.

Narrative poems usually focus in the pros and cons of life, such as a love story, the story of a father and his child, or the adventures of a hero.

Stop & Think: Here you have a famous narrative poem by the American author Edgar Allan Poe: "Annabel Lee". Listen to it and enjoy!

Can you identify the main components of a narrative poem? What do you know about the author?

Review the presentation about Modal verbs: expressing possibility and certainty. If you feel like doing some further exercises, click Modal verbs and I wish: advanced practice.

Look for information and complete the quiz Let's practice reading 3: Annabel Lee.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Annabel_Lee

Edgar Allan  Poe, "Annabel Lee", 1849 fair copy. / Public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Lee

Let's talk like a poet!

Writing poetry may be a bit frightening, but if you pay attention, it's easier than expected!

All poetry consists of four levels: SONIC level, IDEATIONAL level, SENSORY level and VISUAL level. You can easily understand what poetry is simply by noticing these levels in a text and how they relate to one another. So, whenever you read a text, look for these elements, if you find them in the text, then this is a poem!

Stop & Think:

1. Check The Four Levels of Poetry flashcards and remember the characteristics they describe.
2. Review some examples of Figurative Language.

Poets clearly want their language to be vivid, because vivid language paints a picture for the reader, so that the reader can grasp what the poet means with words. Some verbs may help us a lot to make our language more vivid, because they refer to the 5 human senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Do you remember what these verbs are?

Stop & Think: let's see some examples of vivid language.

1. Review the Sense Verbs with flashcards.
2. Brainstorm words to describe an image in each of the 5 sense categories. Try for 3 words in each section (use a thesaurus if you need ideas). You can use them to create similes and metaphors… Vivid language to describe an image flashcards.  If you feel like doing some further exercises, click Vivid language: idioms

Keep these ideas in mind, while you start writing your own poems!

Are narrative poems still popular in the digital era?

image by Nickbar from Pixabay

If you've been on social media for a while, it's clear enough that literature still has a place for social media users who have become digital artists, too. They want to express themselves, and to do so, they have abandonned the traditional blank sheet of paper and turned to the possibilities of digital platforms because they make it easier to present their works of art using  color, images, and sound. These artists started to post poems and short fiction on blog posts and fan-fiction pages back in the 20th century, and have continued to do so on today's most popular social media platforms, such as Soundcloud, Twitter or Instagram.

Some of these writers do it just for fun, but some others want to make a living off their art.  Some of them are really successful and have become part of the publishing industry, too. Instagram poets, like Rupi Kaur , have become very popular thanks to their self-published poems. Her first collection Milk & Honey has been translated into 40 languages and has sold 3.5 million copies! Amazing!

And what about slam poetry and poetry slams?

Slam poems are poems that are basically meant to be read out loud. They can be about any subjects, though they are meant to invoke passion and slam a controversial or personal topic. It is not required that these poems rhyme or have rhythm, but they can and sometimes do! but, keep in mind they cannot exceed a three-minute limit!

Poetry slams are a way for poets to perform poetry together. It all started in Chicago in the 1980's when a local poet and construction worker, Marc Kelly Smith, felt that poetry had lost their true passion and had an idea to bring poetry back to the people. He created a weekly poetry event and called it " a poetry slam", where anyone could participate. Poets performed their work and then were judged by five random audience members on a scale of 0 to 10. Out of the five, the highest and lowest scores were dropped and the three remaining scores were added to give the poet an overall score. Whoever had the highest score at the end of the competition was the winner.

At a slam, the stage is yours and everyone is all ears for what you have to say!

Today, even these loud lively competitions have also gone virtual using platforms like Zoom or Youtube during the Covid19 restrictions all over the world. Will they stay online in the future? who knows ...

Here you have an example of one of the largest youth poetry festivals in the world, Louder than a Bomb , which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Not far from home, in Barcelona, another poetry competition has been going on for a few years: CCCB Poetry Slam Barcelona. Would you like to join it?

Stop & Think:

1. Use a dictionary for the most difficult words in the text and add a new entry in the Glossary 3 for at least TWO different words you have learnt. Click the folder Writing Guides and read the guide on How to write a glossary entry.
2. Are you ready to write your own narrative poem and perform it in front of an audience, as if you were in a poetry slam? To be succesful, you need to see a lot of slam poetry performed. Since it might be difficult for you to attend a poetry slam at a local coffee shop or bookstore, just click the CCCB webpage or Google it. Type in "slam poetry videos for teenagers" or "slam poetry videos for middle school students" and you'll find lots of examples. Take your time and then choose a poem and a poet that you like the best and tell us why in My Learner Diary 3 or My Basic Ideas 3.
3. Here you have a slam poem by Marshall Davis Jones called "Touchscreen" about the ways in which technology is turning humans into kind of "zombies". He performs the poem as if he was an Apple robot, an iPerson who only lives in the digital world, because everything he does, he does it digitally. In the end, we can see how he would like the world to be different and humans be more humans. Subtitles will help you follow the poem.

 by TEDx Talks under Creative Commons license Attribution - NonCommercial -NonDerivative (BY-NC-ND 4.0) TED.com

FINAL TASK

Now it's time for the final task! Remember you can choose to do the final task INDIVIDUALLY or as a GROUP.

Goal: to write a narrative poem related to the following question: What's the story behind an image? and perform the poem in front of an audience in a poetry slam.

Steps:

Part A: Individual / group task

Step 1) Inspiration:

1. Brainstorm ideas: click on the Wiki: Inspiration. and col·laborate with ideas.
2. Choose a topic and an image ( photo, drawing, painting, etc) that catches your attention and inspires you to write a text about it.
3. Take your time and write a draft with the ideas that come to your mind when you look at the image.
4. Copy the image and the list of ideas in My Learner Diary 3 or My Basic Ideas 3.

Step 2) Writing:

1. Now, it's time to write the poem! Be creative and go ahead!! Add a title, too.
2. It's time for revision: choose a color and highlight elements in your text that are examples of the 4 levels of poetry. Don't worry if, in your poem, there are not examples of every single element!
3. Click the folder Writing Guides and read the guide on How to write narrative poetry or  if you need extra help, read the guide Guided writing: a poem.
4. Upload your pdf document to the FINAL TASK individual assessment 3.

Step 3) Rehersal:

1. Now it's time for rehearsal: memorize your text, pay attention to pronounciation. Add a little drama to catch the audience attention.

Part B: Individual

Step 1) Write an entry to your blog post that best describes your experience as a poetry writer and contestant in a slam. Write about the things you liked the best and the things you liked the least. Write about how you felt. Publish a link to your poem (pdf). Click the folder Writing Guides and read the guide on How to write a blog.

Step 2) Do the FINAL TASK peer assessment 3 and give a mark to your classmates's work.

Step 3) Give feedback on the Exit Ticket 3

VIRTUAL POETRY SLAM

It's time for our Virtual Poetry Slam!

What is a Poetry Slam?

A slam is an artistic competition where participants perform original poetry, but, our school poetry slam is more like a collaborative showcase of your hard work, so far.  So, as the saying goes, IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE, IT'S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your effort and welcome you to our poetry competition!

SO, LET'S SLAM!!!!!!!

Let's have a look at the rules! Click the folder Writing Guides and read the guide on How to host a poetry slam

In a slam poetry, typically, participants meet at a café, go on stage and perform their original work in front of an audience who is sitting just opposite them. An MC introduces each participant and recaps the rules for everyone to follow. After each performance, each poet and each poem is judged by members of the audience - 5 judges, who give numerical scores (between 0 and 10) based on the content and performance. Meanwhile, the rest of the audience’s job is to keep the mood supportive, energetic and encouraging to all participants, so, claps and snaps are welcome!

But as you can see, we are in a virtual environment, so, how will we organize our virtual competition?

1. Record your performance and submit the video to our "slamroom" on Flipgrid. (Follow your teacher's  instructions on how to do so)
2. Round one: On the folowing date ....... (date), all videos will be visible for ....... (time). So, it's time for you to watch them and respond to them! Unfortunatelly, claps or snaps are not possible, but  you are welcome to add a "like" on the "Response Reactions" button for the 3 videos you like the most.
3. Round two: the top 5 videos with more likes will be now judged by our five official judges. Click the following link: Let's SLAM! Performance feedback.
4. Awards: And THE WINNER IS ......! On ..... at ...... (date and time), we'll start a videoconference, as usual and we'll celebrate the closure of our poetry slam. Are you ready to meet our class slam champion?  By the way, if you're not the winner today, don't worry ... there are certificate awards for evryone and a new chance on a next slam poetry event!