A three-session introductory course, focusing on deepening the students’ craft of inspirational storytelling. It is designed for those who already have experience in spiritual storytelling (or who have completed the introductory course).
The program is designed to give participants the opportunity to explore the meanings found in the similarities and differences found in spiritual stories from different traditions, and how to transform those meanings into effective storytelling.
Curriculum:
- Class One: Similarities (and distinctions)
- Introductions, first story
- Exploration:
- Illuminating the common themes and components of spiritual stories
- Digestion:
- Acknowledging the differences in similar stories
- Discovering which version resonates for us as individual storytellers
- Stripping away the extraneous to discover the heart of the story
- Creation:
- Crafting a version of the story we would like to tell
- Practice:
- Telling the first story
- Class Two: Distinctions (and similarities)
- Exploration:
- Illuminating the differences between similar stories
- Digestion
- Wrestling with language to highlight these distinctions
- Finding the unfamiliar; learning how to embrace it
- Resetting the varieties on a similar landscape
- Creation
- Crafting a new version of the story we told
- Practice:
- Telling the second story
- Exploration:
- Class Three: Deepening (and rising)
- Exploration
- Moving from “storytelling arc” to “storytelling landscape”
- Wandering into the “wild”
- Brainstorming new stories from familiar tropes
- Creation
- Crafting a brand new story
- Practice:
- Telling the new story
- Closing story, future options
- Exploration
Students should bring a story to be told – not read – of 7-10 minutes. Stories will ideally be drawn from your spiritual / cultural tradition and be meaningful to you.
All presentations will be “workshopped” by the group, to dual purpose: to illuminate the deeper processes at play, and to provide constructive guidance to the teller.
Participants will leave the course with one or two new foundational stories in their repertoire, which will also be useful for discovering and crafting new stories.
