Let Puppets Tell Your Story

O.k., knowing how puppet personalities can take over, let's change this post title to:
Let Puppets HELP Tell Your Story.

er, PUPPET-INSISTED UPDATE:  
Puppets Are People, Too!

LoiS here and trying to return a bit of order: 
Puppets can be so lively and crazier than we might otherwise let ourselves be.  If you want to grab attention, let a puppet carry your story or message.  Just expect, as in the battle of titles above, they will try to take over.

There are so many ways puppets can be used beyond a puppet stage and puppet plays.  Find my earlier article on this, "An Alphabet of Puppets and Storytelling", at my website, http://LoiS-sez.com/Puppets.  The ideas there are arranged alphabetically for easy browsing.  It also forms part of a puppetry workshop I offer.  While at my website, go to the Specialized Resources page for a few internet puppetry sites I recommend.  Now it’s time to look at specific methods in more depth. 

LoiS with Sheerluck

• Puppets can become characters in a story.  Examples of this are tales of Anansi, Br’er Rabbit, or Coyote.  The character may be used for a single story or over several stories.  If you repeatedly tell over a period of time different stories using a specific character, it is easy to build up enough stories to create eventually an entire program with that character.

• Puppets can be the funny character, letting you be the "straight man" often found in comedy acts.  Humor always helps.  If you want learning, research shows humor actually helps people remember more.  There's even a great word for it, Edutainment!  An easy way to do this is by using your puppet for a running gag taking place 3 or more times.  Exaggeration is another comedy method.  Your puppet can be the exaggeration personified or may express the exaggeration physically or verbally for humor.  Another way for your puppet to be funny is let it get things wrong.  An example of this is a puppet incorrectly tells a well-known fairy tale, but you let the audience correct the mistakes.  You may have to ask at first "Is that right?", but they'll soon be calling out the right answers.  Just be sure it all stays friendly and positive.  Even puppets should be treated with respect -- model good treatment of others.  Don't be afraid, when playing to children, to include material more likely to make adults laugh.  Dr. Seuss's work was an example of this kind of writing.  It keeps the adults involved from a grown-up perspective at the same the children enjoy its zany nature.  Physical humor may make the children laugh while adults stay alert for the verbal humor.

• Get over the idea that you must become a ventriloquist.  If you focus upon your puppet as if it was a real person, your audience will, too.  Your puppet’s movement and voice create its character.  Sometimes a puppet mimes a story while you tell it.  You may also let it “whisper information” for you to relay.  Props can add to the fun of a puppet, too.

LoiS and Buzz about Bees

• Another option is just using a character for a single special segment.  The Shel Silverstein poem “I’m Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor” is an example of a single segment worth using as a filler in a program.  An additional hint on that specific poem: wear slacks and not a skirt, unless you want the segment “R” rated!

What word did each of those ideas above include?

Answer: Character.

LoiS and Nina

• The more you develop the character of your puppet, the stronger it will be a part of what you present.  This can take time to develop.  It's also easiest to test on individual children of the same age as your intended audience.  Possibly when testing, even before you try specific voice and movements, you could ask what the child thinks the puppet's character will be.  Then it's up to you to decide if you will develop that appearance of personality even further.  Possibly you will go with the opposite for humor so a big tough looking puppet acts shy and delicate or the petite young thing sounds like a lumberjack.  Is the baby dragon fierce or does it flop at fire-breathing?  I don't have a photo of my Biblioteca Dragon, but will never forget when he tried to turn Santa into Krisp Kringle!

LoiS with her puppy puppet, Buzz, as a lifeguard.  He provides riddles for her Storytelling Cruise Around the World if the audience is smaller than a gym filled with students.

• Puppets are great for Fillers, those small transitional parts of a program which bring variety to a program.  A puppet can create audience involvement by selecting children for jokes and riddles.  Puppets can also sing, yes, even if you aren’t a great singer.  Just remember what Kermit sang: It's not easy being green.  Kermit's voice wasn't that of a great singer, but he had . . . CHARACTER!

I also have a puppet that lets me use my own hands for signing.  Here Ivan the Siberian Tiger signs "Friend."

• When your puppet isn’t part of what you are telling, it can be placed in a position where it sits and listens to you, serving as a role model for your audience.  You could also let it “go to sleep.”  If you don’t want the puppet visible at all times, plan for its entrance and exit.  A large bag can be a perfect spot to let the puppet hide or possibly put it behind a stack of books.  Just be sure the puppet enters and exits as itself.  Don’t destroy its reality.

• After your program is over, the children may want to meet and touch the puppet.  Timid children should be able to pass, if they don’t want contact. Villains may be hit, so those puppets should be kept away from young listeners or your puppet may become damaged.  The fact that children react emotionally to a puppet just shows how real they can be in conveying your story.

Skipping Through the Halls of Memories

In addition to my storytelling and historical reenactment, I provide various oral history or memoir writing workshops, but this is a first for me. . . I was asked if I could do a program on the 1950s.  

True to my theatre training I said "Of course."  Ever since, I've been busily working on my own oral history of growing up in that era. 

The Underground Railroad Didn't Run On Tracks (UGRR)

 

The Underground Railroad is abbreviated UGRR and the letters at the right are from The Anti-slavery Alphabet written for children and printed in 1847 for the Anti-Slavery Fair.  It is free for copying at Project Gutenberg with texts like:

A is an Abolitionist

A  man who wants to free

The wretched slave--and give to all

An equal liberty.

It also opens with a message "To Our Little Readers":

Listen, little children, all,
Listen to our earnest call:
You are very young, 'tis true,
But there's much that you can do. 

That same message ends with:
Thus each one may help to free
This fair land from slavery.

To quote Fergus M. Bordewich, the author of Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, "In an age when self-interest has been elevated in our culture to a public and political virtue, the Underground Railroad still has something to teach: that every individual, no matter how humble, can make a difference in the world, and that the importance of one's life lies not in money or celebrity, but in doing the right thing, even in silence or secrecy, and without reward.  This truth doesn't need to be encoded in fiction in order to be heard."

I definitely agree.  This attracted me to the woman I often portray, Liberetta Lerich Green.  She grew up on an UGRR station, was involved, along with her parents, in abolition and Civil War homefront efforts while her brothers fought in Michigan's "Fighting Fifth" Infantry.  Even in her later years as mother, farmer's wife, and later widow, this seemingly ordinary woman's life has much to teach us.  My website page, LoiS-sez.com - Historical Programs tells more about my work. 

• You may read Liberetta's own oral history to see a bit of what I'm talking about at Shelby Township Historical Committee's "The Beacon Tree. It was my starting point for research and manages to be entertaining and a window into the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century.

•  For the mathematically or economically inclined, Liberetta mentions her parents as stationmasters equally shared with others running the UGRR, so their share of a fine of $100,000 against Warden Gilbert in Connecticut was $200 for feeding 2 runaways, a woman and a boy.  Similarly leading abolitionist, Thomas Garrett's fine in 1848 of $4500 was as if today he were fined $126,000.  He was able to reach a compromise settlement and a lien was put on his house until the fine was paid.  Friends helped him pay it and continue his iron and hardware business -- and helping runaway slaves to freedom.

• Another helpful resource provides a view of Michigan's Time Line of Slavery, Resistance and Freedom (1837-1893).  

• While looking at Michigan, be sure to go to http://www.sojournertruth.org .  This famous UGRR "conductor" was both a friend of the Lerich family and she adopted Michigan as her home.  The site's Library pages have Archives and I highly recommend "Michigan Days of Sojourner"there.

• At UGRR interactive maps see what southern states had runaways coming to MI, travelling to Canada.  (UGRR maps are almost all the same, but this site is a bit more interactive or you can click each level of routes to print -- HINT: print just page 1) 

• For national views of the UGRR and a variety of resources, go to the National Freedom Center and also click on Slavery Today as there still is a worldwide problem unlike that faced by the UGRR of the 1800s.

• The National Geographic site has an interactive UGRR section.  While there click on UGRR Lesson Plans for activity ideas even if you're a library or museum.  The interactive adventure mentions William Still.  

• It doesn't mention that Still kept secret records of about 650 slaves he helped to freedom.  Project Gutenberg has a copy of that book.

• There is so much musical material in the history of the UGRR, that you just need to Google "underground railroad songs" and take your pick!

• More controversial is the idea of how quilts may have been used in the UGRR's work.  A very good history overview of the UGRR and look at the controversy may be found at Quilt History.

• The Promised Land for anyone travelling the UGRR was Canada because Queen Victoria refused to enforce U.S. slavery laws.  I hope you get a chance to visit Dresden, Ontario in person, or at least online, to see the work of Josiah Henson, who did much more than be the inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Anyone "riding" the UGRR rarely had the opportunity to ride, but the Lerich family hiding place actually was underground.  It reminds me of the woman visiting the library where I used to work in Mount Clemens.  She said she rode the Paris Metro and the New York subways and insisted she wanted to see and ride the Underground Railroad!

You know better, the Underground Railroad didn't ride on tracks, but it certainly was an important part of our history.

P.S. Scholastic Publishing just put up a variety of materials on the UGRR & I strongly recommend Myths of The Underground Railroad.  I too often tend to take for granted that people will know that these are not true.  A perfect example Liberetta makes is about how their nearest neighbors were both close friends and yet hoped to catch the Lerichs sheltering slaves so they could use the bounty to pay off their own farm's mortgage.

Puzzled by the New Year Possibilities?

Putting the World Together Is a Puzzle
By: Author Unknown
A mother had a lot of work and her little boy wanted a lot of attention.  To keep him busy she took a magazine with a large map of the world on the cover and tore it up into small pieces.She told her little boy it was a map of the world, and that by the time he could put it back together, she would play with him. She was sure this would keep the child busy a long time.
Not much time later the boy came to his mother and said, "I put it together. Can we play now?"
She was surprised and said, "That's impossible. Show me." It was true, the picture of the world was all put together perfectly.
The mother figured her son was a genius and asked, "How did you do it so quickly?" The boy answered, "It was simple. On the back of the page was a picture of a man. When I put the man together the whole world fell into place."

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Starting a new year or a new project is always puzzling.  Why not offer puzzles to people coming to your programs or your students?  Many can be made to match your theme.

TANGRAMS

• Puzzlemaker  is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more—using your own word lists. Discovery Education also sells a CD-ROM with extra features and clip art.
• Want a high quality crossword puzzle?  Cnet's Download.com, the biggest download site on the internet named  EclipseCrossword  one of "The best free software products" in the games category.  (Requires download, but is free.)
• For other crossword puzzlemaking reviews to decide which crossword puzzle creator best suits your needs, try Puzzle Software Review.
• Make Your Own Jigsaw Puzzle
•  Tangrams are an old seven piece puzzle that can create many pictures. Click on the pink triangle for a Tangram story; on the blue triangle for your pattern. 
• Looking for an online way to put a jigsaw puzzle together?  At Jigsaw Planet use existing pictures or one from your own files.  You control difficulty and shapes.
• Unlike the sites for making puzzles, if you're hooked on playing word games, Word Buff  is for you with strategies for people who play word games to win.
• For games,  Family Crafts - Homemade Games gives holiday and assorted other ideas for children and families.
• One very simple idea, useful even with young children, never was found in my search.  Take several large tongue depressers and glue them to the back of a picture, cut the picture apart.  (Children unable to cut this apart with scissors will do the activity up to this point, letting an adult or older child cut, then they can mix the pieces, and put it back together.)  

There now is an update with additional puzzle ideas in my May 2011 post.  ENJOY!

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Don't be puzzled.  

Storytelling is adaptable to almost any theme and talks directly to your audience.  LoiS has a wide variety of existing programs or can create one just for you.  A sampling can be found at Programs A to Z . 

Call 248-625-5848 or email LoiS-sez@LoiS-sez for more information.

p-art images.

When Disaster Strikes Webliography/Bibliography

Disaster/Disruption Webliography
2 factsheets from Mental Health America: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/information/get-info/coping-with-disaster

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/index.cfm?objectid=C7DF9618-1372-4D20-C807F41CB3E97654  Coping with Bereavement

CDC on disaster, terrorist attack, or other public health emergency  http://www.bt.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/

For disruption:
http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/04/surprise-four-strategies-for-c.html Harvard prof. Rosabeth Moss Kanter's equation: MTBS = or < MTMD. MTBS is the mean time between surprises, which is shrinking. MTMD is the mean time to make a decision, which better be fast.  Her 4 strategies are Backup; Communication; Collaboration; Values and principles.  These tend to be more organizational than personal and emphasize planning ahead for "surprises."

Problems within an organization's changes
http://ezinearticles.com/?Coping-with-Poorly-Planned-Change&id=732634

******  General purpose articles

UNDERSTANDING AND COPING WITH LIFE CHANGES

“Change is inevitable; growth is optional.”—Bumper sticker, author unknown.http://www.mstherapist.com/resources/pdfs/services/LifeChange.pdf

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/7-sneaky-disruptions-that-can-negatively-impact-your-work/

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/consumer/10214.html (has a seasonal metaphor)

http://www.parkerphd.com/PDFs/Resilience_The_Ability_to_Bounce_Back.pdf  (The elements that help are worth cultivating; unfortunately this repeatedly leads the reader into a therapeutic situation -- worthwhile if needed, but doesn't suggest ways to do it without therapy.)

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Bibliography
In the earlier section of suggestions, Rabbi Harold Kushner's classic book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People  was suggested to me.  Currently Amazon lists it as 4 stars after 171 reader reviews.  A lot of people have found this book useful.

Similarly I found the most help from books with a Biblical viewpoint.  If you consider this a bias, so be it, but I've learned over the years when things are at crisis stage all around me, it's time to look up. (Remember that daughter with brain surgery among other severe problems?) The Bible's little book of Psalms is a great place to start.  These "songs" often express great frustration mixed with praise for help from beyond the world around us.

Beyond Chaos: Stress Relief for the Working Woman by Sheila West includes setting up a special plan to reduce your stress and to understand stress so it can be positive.  Her personal insights and focus on ways to accept chaos without letting it control or damage health earned Zig Ziglar's forward and, recently on the internet, he called it a classic and I agree.  I also suggest it's not just for "the Working Woman" even though West's view came from that background.

Only after the worst of my own chaos was subsiding did I remember having read Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear  by Max Lucado.  It's a great book in many ways, including but also way beyond my specific situation.  I recommend this for the variety of chapters touching on many types of problems and crises. The breadth of coverage doesn't negate how Publishers Weekly says its "precision speaks healing words that cut right to the heart."  It's one of those books you find yourself also wanting to give to other people so they can appreciate it, too.

Like any "bibliomaniac", there's always more to read.  Just found another interesting book on my shelf, When the Squeeze Is On; Growing Through Pressure by Martha Thatcher.  Again checking Amazon's reviews, I'm intrigued by this book's breadth of topics and ways of coping with life's pressures through Biblical biographical studies.  Unfortunately, while the book is available through Amazon, it's no longer in print, so it will be harder to obtain and I didn't find it MeLCat, Michigan's listing of books available within the state for interlibrary loan.

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This concludes my First Aid Kit for the various problems that may interrupt life.  I'm sure it won't resolve all problems, but I hope it helps.  Stories, by their very nature, have problems that must be resolved.  I look forward to researching whatever your storytelling program may need and helping your audiences see problems in a new way.

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You may also find the conclusions reached on the anniversary of our disaster at When Disaster Strikes One Year Later worth checking.

When Disaster Strikes - Individual Ideas

These ideas came from only one person, but often it was a person who had been through disasters as bad or worse than my own.  Everybody has something to contribute, so I want to be sure and offer these since we all have different things that work for us.

• Some people work better alone; some work better with company, do whatever works best for you.
• Get a colleague to be a sounding board and do the same for that person; listen regularly to how much each of you have accomplished and give affirmations for that, but don’t tell each other how to do things.  Knowing you won’t be judged, but will be reporting, means you’ll accomplish more.
• Your work may drop, especially if you have no staff to take over for you.
• Put everything related to the problem out of your mind for a time.
• Keep track of what you have done.
• Read When Bad Things Happen to Good People - this will appear in the Bibliography/Webliography final segment.
• If you seem to go beyond ordinary upset into Depression, see somebody credentialed and, if you have medication, take it.
• Send a group email telling what happened to as many as possible / take every opportunity to write or tell others. -- As a storyteller, who usually doesn't tell personal stories, at first this felt like I was making excuses.  Do it anyway.  You and other people benefit from understanding why you are acting the way you are.  You may think you are acting normally, but it will help others understand why you are NOT.
• Tell yourself “This may be awful today, but will make a great story someday.”
• Accept that some days are just bitter, but some days are sweet or simply bland.
• Know it will get better.
• My favorite mantra: Sooooooooo watt (that came from a storytelling friend who worked through a fire in her home); another said over and over: Nothing is happening in this moment that I can’t handle – relax and believe it will all be as it should be in time.
• Soothing music / hum, chant, sing.  In contrast to that, yet another suggested finding some times for silence.  (During those first weeks we found the ROAR! of the fans and drying machines overwhelming.)

I haven't always counted as much on these, but that doesn't mean I didn't try them in some cases.  I did pay extra attention to anybody who had experienced a similar event or worse.  Just trying an idea can be helpful as it means you are making an effort towards resolving your problem.

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You may also find the conclusions reached on the anniversary of our disaster at When Disaster Strikes One Year Later worth checking.

When Disaster Strikes - FREQUENT Suggestions

When I asked my fellow storytellers what suggestions they could offer, this is a list of suggestions given by more than one person. 

• The most often given suggestion was to take breaks in NATURE and fall into rhythm with nature.  I live in a setting where I thought I already was doing this until my husband, Tom, and I had to travel to the north tip of the Michigan "mitten."  It was a work-related trip, but it was also just as autumn's colors were popping out in all their glory.  We returned to our Chaos Central and it didn't take long to return to all the insanity, but we still talk about our gratitude for that trip.
• Do whatever gives you a sense of well being (chocolate, dinner, a movie, reading, time with an upbeat friend, pets, physical activity etc.) and renews rather than drains you.
• Get away for short bursts.
• Do small jobs and focus on 1 accomplishment at a time.  (In our particular Chaos there is a seemingly endless supply of such jobs, listing what was destroyed, and, eventually, putting things back in order.)
• Try to keep a regular schedule.  My work isn't regular.  Normally I thrive on that, but during a crisis, times subbing in the library felt like a vacation!  Added to that, I found a dance class or rehearsals for a coming show were a help.  It felt insane to do any of this, but it was helpful to have this regularity already on my schedule and it also forced me to really concentrate on something different.
• Journal, especially gratitude – nightly list 5 things for which you are grateful.
• Cry. (Giving yourself permission means you won’t have to do it too often.)  I am NOT a person who cries easily.  It was hard for me to do this.  It finally came in church.  I use sign language as I sing as it helps me think about what I'm singing.  I found I became both fierce and tearful as God challenged me to trust His support.
• Let go a little…it’s o.k. to be overwhelmed and not give yourself a hard time about it; you have grieving to do (possessions also hold meaning and saying goodbye is important).
• Laughter and humor, even if dark, is needed.  Personally I've always considered humor a major weapon in my toolbox for any problem.
• See the benefits: After a big CA earthquake, a woman said in an NPR interview that at first she was very sad, especially about photos and special mementos, but then she realized she could put all her remaining “stuff” in her car and be free to travel anywhere.  

Speaking about benefits: I do NOT recommend my type of Disaster as a way to renovate, but it did have that benefit.  Unfortunately I like my surroundings to require minimal attention.  I do NOT have a Decorator gene and am not somebody who moves furniture about for a change of pace.

• Exercise and eat a well balanced diet of healthy food.  Disasters are by their nature stressful.  You also are more prone to accidents then and it's easier to get sick.  I remember a broken leg happened in our family when a daughter had brain surgery.   As for strained muscles, right now I'm blaming all the heavy moving, but tension may have also played a part. 

That's the suggestions I heard from more than one person.  The next section will have ideas offered by only one person, but still may help you.

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You may also find the conclusions reached on the anniversary of our disaster at When Disaster Strikes One Year Later worth checking.