Seeing the Storytelling "Light"

The section titled "Special Tips for Working with Younger Kids" was exactly what I was looking for when reading chapter 5. Chapter 5 seemed a little overwhelming with information and I feel that this section gave really great advice when working with a younger group of students. The ideas that Ohler presented originally seemed like levels of thinking that may be too heavy of ideas for elementary students. To resolve this, Ohler suggests changing concepts in a way that is appropriate for a student's skill level. For instance, younger students can better relate to the idea of getting in and out of trouble rather than introducing the concepts of problem and solution and tension and resolution. Similarly, this can also be done with the idea of character transformation. Asking questions about how a character will change or what will a character learn, can introduce the concept of transformation (loc. 1409). As a final point, Ohler refers to a "fellow story teller Brett Dillingham," who suggested that students start with a picture that will represent what their story will be about. This goes back to story boarding which is a way for a younger student to begin the process of storytelling. I am starting to see a method to Ohler's story telling madness/passion that I can apply to my elementary classroom.