Working with Stories....

March 2013

''Stories...eminating from incidences... we would not be able to live without making up stories... imagine if this happened... developing from feeling responses...eminating...continuously creating an alternative world in my head... whats an odd incidence?... odd but ordinary... things that actually happened...'
                                                    Unknown

In this class, we were looking at the idea of stories. We were asked to bring in a personal item, and give an account of where it belonged in our lives, how we came to have it and what connects with it. The item that I had chosen were my red disneyland woolen mittens.

We were asked to get into groups, tell each other about our items, as well as individually making up a random story about where the items came from.This is my true story:

My red mittens were given to me by my nan. She bought them from Disneyland Paris years ago but hardly wore them, so she gave them to me. If I weren't wearing them, they would always be in my bag. Alot of the time I wouldn't wear them if i needed them, cause they have a slight hole in the top. Wearing them takes me back to Disney Lake, where i stood there admiring the view, with my gloves sticking out since they didn't go with anything else i wore.

This was my random story: My nan told that when she was a little girl,she visited the North Pole. After travelling for many miles she came to where Santa Claus lived. Stading in a huge gateway were Mr and Mrs Claus calling for her to come in. Inside, there was a bunch a sheep, 7 brothers, but they were all the different colours of the rainbow, and they were magical. Santa said that if you use their wool to make something, it will be magical too. Mrs Claus said 'what would you like my deary?'. My nans hands were cold, so she asked for some red mittens. The red sheep was rather cranky because everyone asked for his wool, where the yellow sheep was sad, because not so many people asked him. After some persuasion, the red sheep said okay. After shearing the wool, it was given to a giant elf with the hands to make the mittens. In seconds, the were finished. When my nan tried them on, she started floating in the air. The mittens allowed her to fly! After saying goodbye to the Clauses and the sheep and the giant elf, nan flew off home. Many years later, the mittens don't work anymore, but it you look closely, you can still see them shining as if they were brand new.

When we revisited this task in the next class, we had to create movement to go with our stories, using our items where possible. I did alot of waling and travelling around on my hands whilst wearing my mittens, chaning my position often to keep the other group members attention.