Burns storytelling 2014

Well, it’s been an amazing couple of weeks! I’ve done a total of 10 storytelling sessions in a total of 6 Primary Schools in and around Glasgow. Written and verbal feedback from the teachers was excellent for almost all of these, so I’m feeling very inspired and encouraged. 

I wasn’t looking to go into schools to “teach” Burns; rather, my approach was to explore Burns with the children. In doing so, I feel I have deepened my own understanding of the Bard’s work.

To A Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
Wi' bickering brattle! 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 
Wi' murd'ring pattle! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion, 
Has broken nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion, 
Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 
An' fellow-mortal! 

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; 
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! 
A daimen icker in a thrave 
'S a sma' request; 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, 
An' never miss't! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! 
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 
O' foggage green! 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin, 
Baith snell an' keen! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 
Thou thought to dwell- 
Till crash! the cruel coulter past 
Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! 
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 
But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
An' cranreuch cauld! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain; 
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men 
Gang aft agley, 
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 
For promis'd joy! 

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me 
The present only toucheth thee: 
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e. 
On prospects drear! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 
I guess an' fear!

My approach with this was to use a simple home-made fingermouse puppet as a prop. I would address the mouse when reciting the poem, and the children when discussing the poem, which I would stop to do in between the stanzas.

The first school I went into gave me some interesting constructive criticism: the teacher liked my work, but felt that it was pitched at a younger age group. I took this very much to heart, and started looking for ways to make my sessions more challenging for older children. The first and most important change I made was to my presentation of To A Mouse.

Before, I had always paused after every stanza to explain it to the children. What if, instead, I ASKED  the children to explain it to me. That gets their wee minds birling, puts them in charge of how the poem is to be explored, and gives me a chance to see how close they are to actually understanding the poem (and to nudge them in the right direction if necessary). This approach also gives us a stronger opportunity for some high-quality as-we-go-along discussion of the poem’s deeper meanings.

The disadvantage of this approach is, of course, that it takes longer – as was noted in feedback from one teacher. It takes about 20 minutes with the ask-method, as opposed to around 10 with the tell, but I am convinced that the richness of the experience justifies the extra time.

Once I am finished the poem, I open up discussion on its ideas and themes. A lot of the children seem far more concerned for the welfare of the mouse, and asked if Rabbie built it a new home, or adopted it!  The honest answer is that the poem doesn’t say, which creates an opportunity for me to do what I think one should always do where possible: encourage children to find their own answers, by asking: “What do you think?”

If I think it is helpful, I will ask a couple of questions myself: How was Burns feeling when he wrote this? And Is this poem about a man or a mouse? (My favourite answer to the latter was a wee boy who tilted his head contemplatively then said “Well, I think it’s about 80% about a mouse, and about 20% about a man.”)

I’ve found that the best way to summarise the overall idea of the poem – which I will usually do towards the end of the discussion session – is to relate the idea of best laid schemes going agley to an experience with which the children will be familiar.

“Does anyone here like building with wooden blocks?” Most do. I say that I do too (no lie! I’m a big wean!)

I then ask if they’ve ever had the experience of spending all day working on a tower only to have it knocked down. Hands go up. Some nod. Some wince.

I ask how it made them feel.

So now it’s a feeling I know, the children know, Robert Burns knew, and so did his mouse. The connection is made, and the heart of the poem is accessible! Ta-dah!

Storytelling

It would seem reasonable that, being a storyteller, I would, at some point in my sessions, get down to some actual storytelling. Therefore... Tam O’ Shanter!

Burns’s terrifying and hilarious epic is too long and difficult to perform straight through (though I can!) for Primary children, but the poem has such a strong narrative that it works as well told as a story. With some of its themes and content, it needs be tamed a little. It is for the storyteller to judge as he/ she goes along, by the age and character of the listeners, how and to what extent this should be done.  Thus it is one of the best examples of how reading from a page can never compare to genuine, live oral storytelling!

The storm is almost a character in this tale, and so I have the children provide the sound effects for wind and rain and rattling windows. Sometimes they are timorous – permission to make a dreadful racket in the classroom is a rare privilege! But once they get into it, they usually blow up a magnificent storm, and holding fast my imaginary gude blue bonnet as I gallop around the classroom on an equally imaginary horse hardly require the effort of imagination!

This tends to be my favourite part of the session, the children are there in the moment and so am I, the classroom dissolves and witches take form. The magic of storytelling is electrifying, and I oft provoke a satisfying GASP when Meg makes it to safety without her tail!

I then move on from Tam O’ Shanter to collaborative story-building. I tell the children that Burns was often visited by his Auntie Betty, who told him scary stories when he was wee, and that this might be where he got the idea for Tam O’ Shanter. But certainly we know that he loved scary stories, and that the best birthday present we can give him is a brand new scary story! The children are well up for it, and I produce, as a talisman to indicate who is telling this part of the story... Timmy Tattie the Tartan Teddy!

I start the story with a group of children in a suitably scary situation – haunted house, wandering in the dark woods... and then...

From the first “And then”, the story belongs to the children. Some contributions will just be another monster or a lot of screaming and running; sometimes it will be a fiendishly clever plot twist (One of the stories ended with all the monsters chasing the children turning out to be their parents in disguise, there to teach them a lesson!)

Weird and wonderful adventures have sprouted from this exercise, which was almost always successful, and gave the children the chance to participate creatively.

There was one occasion, however, when I didn’t use that exercise because there were too many children.  I switched, instead to a story-building exercise called The Journey, where the children are told to hold in their minds each story-element in turn: A form of transport; A place (in this case, a SCARY place!); A Person (in this case, a SCARY person!) to meet on the way; Something Exciting to happen when we get there; Something To go Wrong with our form of transport when it’s time to go home; An Alternative Way to get home... and then we go home. I then mix and match the elements of selected children’s stories, so we end up with a collaborative story that is rather silly and fun. The advantage of this is that every child has their own unique story in their mind, and can develop it later if they want, so no one feels left out. The disadvantage is that it is over-structured and formulaic, and doesn’t allow for the same creative free flow of controlled anarchy that pass-the-teddy does.

Songs

Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon is a beautiful, poignant, sentimental song, lamenting lost love whilst waxing lyrical on the beauties of nature.

You Shouldnae Stick That Up Yer Nose is a song which is... rather different.

The challenge I put to the children is to guess which one Robert Burns wrote. Needless to say, they mostly all get it right (and the few who don’t are, I suspect, at it); then comes the hard question: why? What makes you think that? What are the clues?

I inevitably get answers like “The second song was stupid” “Burns poems are more depressing, and that was more funny”. Some pick up on the anachronisms: You Shouldnae Stick That Up Yer Nose features a surreal assortment of objects being stuck up noses, many of which were not invented in Burns’s time. Some will say “There are more Scottish words in the first song”, which leads to discussion of different types of Scottish words. Some will say “There are more tricky words in the first song”, which is true: The second song is much easier to understand! This can stimulate a terrific conversation about the old-fashioned Scots language of Burns, and wonderful words like Cranreuch, which we don’t use any more.

The BEST answer I got was “The first song was more folky.” There are no right and wrong answers, but... that kid pretty much nailed it! It also provided a wonderful way in to a conversation about different musical styles.

Even answers which were a bit wide of the mark (“Robert Burns wouldn’t write anything rude!”) can stimulate a lively discussion, and get the children thinking about language and style.

And, of course, I usually finish up with Auld Lang Syne.

The half-hour sessions

One school had me split the hour between two groups. These sessions were tricky because I had to condense things a lot. There were also mixed ages, so I had P 7s and P1s in the same group, and this made it difficult to find the balance. Toning Tam O’ Shanter down enough for the wee ones, whilst still keeping it engaging for the big ones. I also reverted to explaining rather than asking about To A Mouse. This was both to save time and to make it accessible for the wee ones (though it still went over the heads of the very youngest). I also rattled through Tam, and sang only You Shouldnae Stick That Up Yer Nose to ask whether Burns wrote it. Not ideal, but I think I packed quite a lot of value into these half- hour sessions.

But I discovered something about Pass The Teddy: it actually works better with a mix of ages, with more sophisticated elements being added by the older children, whilst the younger ones just throw in some extra monsters for good measure!

Triumphs

Two or three of the sessions – one in particular – stand out in my mind as particularly energised and wonderful, where the kids were participating brilliantly, the discussion was really deep and challenging, the ideas were creative and whimsical, and everything went right. These are the ones from which I floated home on a happy haze of success. These are the ones I’ll never forget so long as I live.

So, in the interests of shamelessly blowing my own trumpet, here are some of the best comments I’ve received on feedback forms from teachers:

“Fantastic experience for children, always engaged”

“Covered a variety of Literacy Outcomes + Experiences”

“Good starting point for the children to take further”

“Thank you! We enjoyed the Storytelling!”

“Energetic and enthusiastic presentation and very engaging – children listen intently and thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Challenges

But... it would be a great big hairy lie with flies buzzing round it to say that everything went smoothly. There were challenges.

Though Pass The Teddy was, for the most part, one of the most successful and enjoyable activities, there was one session in which it simply didn't

 work. The children were a bit too giggly and over-enthused, which meant it took far too long and I struggled to maintain any sort of coherence. Another problem was that at the start of the story they were sitting in very neat rows, making it easy to pass the teddy along one row then back along the next... however, a certain amount of shuffling went on and they didn’t keep their shape, making it difficult to tell who had had a shot. It had gone well in the immediately previous session, same school, same set-up, but with slightly older children. Nonetheless, I think the pass-the-teddy exercise is better suited to a classroom than an assembly hall. The Journey is a reasonable substitute for these situations. Mistake made. Lessons learned.

Other challenges involved changing time constraints forcing me to drop some of the planned activities. With my time again, perhaps I would have done less discussion on To A Mouse and made making time for Auld Lang Syne a priority (There was only one school at which I missed out ALS.)

But I think that I worked very hard to overcome the challenges I faced; that I learned from mistakes, and that I have a much stronger sense of what parts of my sessions need the most work, so I think overall I can find cause for optimism even in those sessions that could have gone better.

Conclusion

I really, really miss this project already! It’s been a bumpy ride in places, but overall, a very fulfilling one.

Burns absolutely belongs in the classroom, because his genius wordsmithery and wit in the language of the common Scot open a window into the human soul. If he is presented to children in bite-sized chunks, with the style and flair of a talented storyteller (if I do say so myself!) something of that joy and energy can be shared, and there is no limit to what youngsters can achieve under its influence.