Arts Education Showcase Directory

A program of The Kentucky Center (www.kentuckycenter.org) in partnership with Kentucky Educational Television (www.ket.org) and The Center for Rural Development (www.centertech.com).

Cynthia Changaris, Storyteller

Cynthia Changaris

Cynthia Changaris is a storyteller who combines music and singing with folk tales, personal stories, and audience participation. She teaches others to tell stories through auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning modalities.

Main Art Form: Dramatic Arts
Other Art Forms: Music, Creative Writing
Other Subjects: Reading, Language Arts
Grade Levels Served: Primary, Intermediate

Description

When students engage story, they create images in their heads. They can be engaged with the story by acting, miming, retelling the story in various ways, drawing, sculpting, rewriting, developing dialog, developing story scripts, developing maps and understanding of the landscape of the story, writing poems or songs or raps of the story, creating advertisements for the story. The focus of the educational program can be individualized for the teacher and the students and the students age. Cynthia works in folktales, fairy tales, personal narratives, narratives from senior citizens, including information on the interview process.

Program Goals

Students will experience the following:
development of listening skills
a chance for pure engagement and enjoyment of stories and songs
development of knowledge of several stories that they can keep in their minds and tell
development of oral skills, including public speaking
development of storytelling skills, including miming, gestures, facial changes, eye contact, vocal changes, (such as fast/slow, high/low, rough/smooth, mood),pacing and silence, projecting voice to be heard, effective use of body and stance, characterizations, and observation of audience
development of story knowledge, including beginning, middle and end, characters, landscape, plot, problem, solution to problem, dialog, description, senses to inform description
understand storytelling as a face to face communication
retell stories in group setting or in dyads
draw a storyboard and map of the story
create dialog orally and in writing
present a story or part of a story orally
develop personal stories from their life or life of family member or senior citizen and present stories in writing, art form, or orally
develop a love of stories and storytelling
create art from the story, a poem, book, pictures, sculpting, rap, etc.
know and understand what a folk tale is
know themselves better and understand their own strengths as they participate in the telling and working with story, including development of self esteem, especially from students who often have trouble with the written language
sing songs with joy and gusto and create new verses
co-create pictures from listening to story
listen to flute, guitar, dulcimer and understand difference between instruments
rewrite stories or write their own story, letter, dialog, description of landscape, description of characters
Note, I can pick and choose what of the above interests the teacher and would best suit the age level of the students. I often work orally before engaging children in writing, which is effective in exercising their language skills and allowing them to edit stories orally. I use stories from around the world, and teach the children about how culture affects story, and often teach them about their own culture through folk activities, such as paper folding, string stories, poems and rhymes, songs, stories, etc.
In addition, I am interested in teaching children how to coach each other in strengthening their work of writing or telling. Coaching requires the students to listen carefully and in focused manner, to respond to others work by giving affirmations about what works well, to respond to others work by asking questions for their fellow students to respond to, allowing the student to ask from their peers their own questions about their work.
Note also that stories create in the classroom a common knowledge and common language that can be bonding for the children and support all children in being respected and treated with kindness. Shared stories also create a bond between teacher and students, as they have experienced common ground.
If workshops lead to a culminating event, and storytelling is developed and children get to perform stories for each other or for their parents,their is a strengthening of self esteem. Children can delight in their own strength and knowledge and presentation.

Pricing Info

350 a day for 2 programs, which may include assemblies
400 a day for 4 programs
1300 a week, for 4 programs a day in the classroom

Additional Information

Cynthia has been a full time storyteller for the past 24 years, and works with all ages of people from the crib to the senior citizens. She carefully choses her stories based on the development and ages of the students. Her work is engaging, fun, entertaining, and interactive.
She has a B and B on the Ohio River, 33 miles from Louisville, where she teaches storytelling, maintains a strong storytelling library, and serves up restful hospitality and space for creativity to grow. Teachers and students in small groups are welcome to come to develop storytelling skills and ideas of ways to use story across the curriculum.
We are a people of story. Story is a powerful teaching tool for language, math, writing, social studies, science, etc. Thinking about using story will increase a teachers tool chest, and add ways for students to cement their knowledge and develop a relationship to new learning.