Storytelling: Process and Practice reading response

Livo and Rietz

I must be completely honest and just have to say that I never knew so much went into reading a story. Seriously, I didn't even know that the way you read a story could be pulled apart and examined at so many levels. Some of the information was extremely new to me, while other parts were pure common sense. Yet, the reading was extremely informative, but it obviously was a whole lot to take in.

Some points that I found to be the most interesting were those about participation, questioning, and the paralinguistic elements. Participation and questioning are both strong aides in reading to children. Getting children really involved in stories and asking them what they would do or what's going to happen next makes the story more real for them, and it allows them to use their imaginations. Also, the section on paralinguistic elements clearly shared all of the important factors that need to be considered while reading a story. It helped me realize that tone, speed, and breathing are all things that I pay attention to when someone else is telling a story, and that they can dramatically change what the audience understands and gains from it.

Aside from the good parts, there were some things discussed that I did not enjoy. Two of these were the explanation of how a character is living their own reality, and the intonation breakdown. I do understand that these play an important part in the understanding and effectiveness of a story, but both of these sections just seemed to look a little too much into the subject.

While the reading did give me a lot of detailed insight into the world and art of storytelling, it also somewhat changed my idea of storytelling. Of course all of the things discussed are important and necessary when telling a story, but actually seeing it all on paper and reading about each specific little detail just complicates something that used to seem so simple.