Part 4
In an art defined as story-telling _the skillful use of the voice_ is the chief technique to be mastered, and, alas, the least regarded. It is, however, gaining ground. Story-tellers are finding it increasingly reasonable to believe there is close connection between what is to be told and how it is told. While it is true that so strong is the vitality of the _what_ that it will usually triumph in some degree over the _how_, this is no sound argument for abandoning it to that fate. It is also true, because of the social nature of language, that the listener will do much, no matter how dull the how, to inform and transform the what in the light of his own knowledge and experience. This is precisely in just measure what he is to do. But this argument also is weak.
Man tries to utter his meaning, to give sound to the sense of his thought. All students of words appear to agree to this as a primary creative principle. And in the utterance of language he employs instinctively what some story-tellers condemn as the “show” tricks of elocutionists: suggestive quality or pitch of voice; slow or rapid rate of speaking; grouping, inflection, and pause. Mastery of this instinctive use of speech in its fullness and perfection, as a means to an end, is what is meant by mastery of oral technique. Whatever the method of mastery, direct or indirect, surely the end should be granted.
It has taken many people a long time to convince themselves that the speaking voice is in need of proper exercise and training. They have expected too much of the speaker. The living person back of the speech, the personality, is the chief element in speech; without the speaker to utter his meaning, speech would be nothing but empty word mouthing. But they should give the speaker at least as much fair play as has the singer, training in the use of the voice. The set jaw, wrong coördination, the half-open throat, the closed glottis, or “voice box,” the immobile lip (whose remedy, by the way, is not mouthing), the thick tongue,—all these, causing indistinctness, nasality, throatiness, are impediments to speech. So are throat or nasal or dental obstructions. So is incorrect breathing.
The nice art of enunciation and articulation is worth mastery. Phonics appears to some people like a science of very small things. It has not only an æsthetic value, but, if you must separate them, an intellectual value. Masters of enunciation and articulation give not only finish but richer meaning to language. This, again, is no doubt due to the lively connection between sound and sense. Open mouth and throat well to pronounce the vowels in _joy_, or _shine_, and confirm the truth of this; note the force of vowels, consonants, or aspirate pronounced accurately in _glisten_, _shimmering_, _hushed_, _croaked_, _scream_, _harsh_. It will be understood of course that the requirements of character suggestion may demand slurring, chopping off, drawling, and all sorts of speech vices; when in place they become virtues.
We are fond of using the expression “as natural as breathing.” How many are breathing as nature would have them? The speaker should be past master of breathing: be able to expand the diaphragm and fill full and deep, to supplement this basal stock, as opening the mouth to enunciate a vowel or to speak a phrase gives easy, unobtrusive opportunity, to expend breath economically.
The story-teller should “find” his particular voice. To do this he may read or speak in his ordinary tone and note where it vibrates. This is his natural, or at least second-nature, voice, working basis for improvement; re-placing, purifying, strengthening, making flexible.
He should be able to place tone, to give it this or that quality, as the needs of interpretation may demand. He should be able to keep feeling out of the voice, and to speak with feeling without violating the principle of reserve.
Understanding, feeling, and æsthetic appreciation are rooted in the story-teller, to be sure, but they must be transmitted by the organs of voice. He will be delighted to find that the physical action of these organs, if easy and responsive, appears to deepen his own understanding and feeling and to send them in greater fullness to the listener.
One of the most important principles of oral technique is perspective, through which the central idea is kept dominant throughout the story. Proper application of this principle gives the whole story unity and increasing interest and point. To give the story perspective the story-teller employs grouping, pause, rate, pitch, and inflection. Space permits of nothing more than this mere enumeration of these means and of pointing out a very limited use of one or two. Beginners often err in grouping. In the story of “The Frog Prince,” for example, they will say “there was a king,” making this a more or less complete and leading idea, instead of “there was a king who had beautiful daughters;” at this point, moreover, by use of the complete falling inflection they destroy the subordinate relation of this idea to the succeeding one, “but the youngest was the most beautiful.” Untrained speakers and badly trained readers overuse the falling inflection. Story-tellers will find it helpful to practice the sustained, or “forward pointing,” voice. It is necessary to the proper building out of units of thought. The story-teller should “make,” for example, the word picture with the voice, bit by bit, much as the painter does the line and color picture with the brush, each added detail going toward the whole.
Mastery of pause is important. In ordinary communication the story-teller, as does everyone else, uses pause a hundred times a day, but he is inclined at first to overlook its part in story-telling. He should learn to pause to make clear not only the divisions of single sentences, but of the whole story, its setting, action, resolution, and close. He should use it also to set off for dramatic emphasis or emotional effect significant or climactic circumstances, persons, or details of action. Pause is one of the simplest and most effective means of emphasis. Of course, like every other means of speech, it is sometimes best ignored.
This bare glance at speech technique shows us that the story-teller should have such command over the agencies of oral transmission as will enable him to convey the story fully to the listener. Let his point of departure be the effort to utter his meaning.
When telling stories to young children the story-teller may do more or less _“leading” of the feelings and the taste_, thus educating the child to respond to what is playful or brave or humorous or beautiful. If the story-teller will show pleasure in obedience, fun, good-nature, loveliness in nature or art, shape, for example, or color, or sound, or adaptability to use, the imitative listener will respond in like appreciation. Some beginners find it difficult to do this. Sometimes the source of the difficulty is bad habit in reading. This affects story-telling when the story has been prepared from the printed page. The student comes to the story-telling class with the habit formed of suppressing in his reading appreciation of excellence or of beauty. Two students talking together outside of class may do the natural thing; if describing beauty—loveliness of nature, human loveliness, goodness, heroism—they show pleasure in it by smiling lip and softly shining eye; “beauty,” as Wordsworth has it, “makes them glad.” But nine times out of ten the beginner in story-telling who has prepared the story from a book allows no appreciation of beauty to get into voice or self as he tells, for example, “In olden times, when wishing was having, there lived a king who had beautiful daughters, but the youngest was so lovely that even the sun himself, who has seen so much, marveled whenever he shone in her face.” He is not of course to magnify this phrase unduly; he must keep it in proper perspective.
It is astonishing how imperfectly we talk and tell. As indicated before, words as they are uttered represent to the young listener, and, so lively is language, in great degree to the adult also, exactly what the speaker puts into them. If he utters _bright_ dully, he contradicts truth; if he pronounces _loved_ coldly, he robs it of the human warmth of itself; if he mumbles _lovely_, he dwarfs beauty. To correct wrong habit in speaking, the student of story-telling should cultivate sensibility to the feeling and æsthetic suggestions in language, and during the stage of apprenticeship be content to be conscious until more spontaneous appreciation shall relieve him of watchfulness.
To take another example, in the story of “The Hut in the Wood,” beginners often fairly shout “night was coming on,” “the owl hooted,” “the trees rustled.” The thing to be communicated here through the details is the emotional state of the girl. It is communicated by sympathetic interpretation: lowering of voice, with suggestion in it of the sounds heard, accompanied by shrinking in posture and dawning of fear in the face.
Leading is open to abuse. The more the language of the story tells on its face when interpreted so as to set free the associations bound up in it, the more the story-teller must trust it to carry its own effects.
The story-teller is governed most by the supreme canon of _simplicity_. His must be a peculiarly unelaborate, apparently artless art. In gesture and facial expression, in dramatic suggestion, in speech, his is that form or degree of the artistic manner that will carry to the listener the unaffected, frank, childlike kind of life with which the child story deals: _not intense in manner_; _not intellectual nor artificial in gesture_; _not pedantic nor studied in speech_—but _sincere and simple_.
THE CHILD’S PART IN STORY-TELLING
Let us tabulate some of the things the child naturally does as his part in story-telling. The table will be incomplete, but it may be suggestive. What is the child’s part in story-telling?
(1) _It is listening._
(2) _It is remaining silent._
(3) _It is commenting._
(4) _It is joining in._
(5) _It is re-telling._
(6) _It is partial re-telling._
(7) _It is telling other stories._
(8) _It is inventing stories._
(9) _It is expressing sometimes story images in other media._
(10) _It is sometimes playing the stories._
(11) _It is growing by the power and grace of the story._
(1) _It is listening._ Let us not underrate the child’s quiet part as listener harkening to the story again and again to catch wider and deeper vision of it.
(2) _It is remaining silent._ When it is the silence of delight, be content; this is result enough. When it is the spiritual silence out of whose brooding may be born reverent awe or insight into justice or cheerful good will or virile endeavor, bring all your wisdom to bear to decide whether you will help or hinder by leaving the child to himself, and in case of doubt give the story the benefit of it, trusting it to deliver its own message in due season.
(3) _It is commenting._ On the other hand, do not be unmindful of another opportunity. A child, like an adult, is inclined to talk some stories over; meet him halfway. Indeed, in some cases, lead the way; stimulate an inert class to talk over some of the more objective type of stories. It is your opportunity to get and clarify the child’s point of view.
(4) _It is joining in._ We learn, from the snatches of story-telling history that have come down to us, that it was the custom of the audience to join in at the rhythmic repetitions, as people do at the chorus of a comic song. The children show the same tendency; encourage it. It not only pleases them, but it is an easy and natural beginning in reproduction. The child’s dramatic sense prompts him to come in also when the story-teller reaches dialogue; encourage this also.
(5) _It is re-telling._ Rightly conducted, reproduction of stories is profitable for shaping the pupil’s thought and language mode. But is the exercise rightly conducted? The children listen in breathless delight as the teacher tells the story; she demands it “back,” the children struggle, interest flags, teacher and children toil on, and joy dies out in story and listener. This is too bad. Story-telling is a legitimate opportunity for unalloyed pleasure; the school is not too lavish of such times. What is the root of the trouble? It lies in one or more sources: the practice of requiring premature reproduction of some types of story not grasped by the children to the definite point of re-telling; the teacher’s unreasonable or wrong standards of achievement; the pupil’s lack of familiarity with the story, due to the teacher’s tendency to turn reproduction into a test or task.
The tendency of the school to require immediate verbal reproduction of all stories is unwise utilitarianism. It is limiting the teacher’s choice of stories undesirably. Feeling compelled to demand reproduction of every story, the teacher confines her choice to stories the children will take hold of easily. We can all testify that we have heard and been moved or delighted by recitals we could not reproduce; their purpose was to accomplish exactly what they did accomplish. The child is capable of responding in æsthetic pleasure or spiritual uplift to stories as yet beyond his re-telling. It is highly desirable that he be given the chance of contact with such material and that its seed be given time to root and flower. To urge him to immediate reproduction is to develop shallow glibness at the sacrifice of something finer. Under the compulsion of reproduction the teacher excludes, also, not only beautiful and spiritualizing stories, but long stories. Long stories are not desirable on the mere ground of length, but even this ground has its claim. The longer stories give sustained exercise to the imagination, and they give the story-teller ampler field to set forth character or action and to let the story yield fuller measure of delight. Short and long and longer and shorter are all in place. And not all need nor should be reproduced.
How much should the teacher expect when she asks pupils to tell back any stories they have heard only once, or at most twice? Exactly what the pupil gives, what he grasped. Many teachers are disturbed, however, by the meager “language training” afforded by this very brief re-telling. Why not let the stories, by reiteration of them on the teacher’s part, impose their thought process and language mode on the forming habit of the child? This does not mean that reproduction must be verbatim repetition, nor that the children’s individuality is to be suppressed. But what a mockery, especially in some quarters, is this prevalent idea in the schools that the child must not be familiarized with the language of the story, but that he should be compelled to “tell it in his own words.” Alas, “his own words”! Would not familiarity with the story’s language bring riches to the thought-starved and language-starved children of some unschooled parents, anxious that their children shall enjoy advantages denied to themselves? Would it not help in foreign sections?
(6) _It is partial re-telling._ Let the children come into possession of the story naturally and gradually. At each re-telling of it by yourself look for firmer and fuller reproduction. Help to keep the children’s interest centered in the story, not so much by commenting patronizingly, “How well John told the story!” but rather by openly enjoying the story John is telling. Let language come, as it should, with the effort to express the thought. And do not interfere with composition by unnecessary questioning. Your first method of helping the pupils’ reproduction might be by supplying omitted parts rather than by questioning analytically for them, as is so commonly done at present. (Questioning has of course its place: it serves to lift into consciousness the relations existing among the parts of the story.) Try co-operative telling: tell part yourself, then let a child or several in succession tell the next, helping if necessary but not anticipating, and perhaps finish the story yourself. The children will soon be able to manage more. Simple, artistic illustrative picture or blackboard sketches, showing in succession the main divisions of the story, will help to give it uninterrupted sequence. (When divisions are made either orally or pictorially, they should be true portions of the whole.) Presently the children will find themselves telling the whole of some stories without undue feeling of strain, and with great pleasure to themselves and their classmates.
Is it natural, by the way, to reproduce in the same company a story just heard? This is the common school practice. In an adult audience this would of course never be done except on the frank basis of practice in so doing or for some other accepted purpose. The children enjoy dwelling on the story. And they may practice, with the motive of telling the story at home. The teacher need not, therefore, strain at devices to make reproduction more natural, yet she might often take advantage of or contrive more natural occasion for it. The natural occasion is social intercourse and entertainment. There is space only to indicate one or two ways of securing this attractive natural motive. Sometimes let at least a day elapse before asking for the reproduction; you may then let the exercise be an opportunity to enjoy the story again. Tell the same story over and over (if it be a good one) yourself on appropriate occasions, and encourage the children to do the same thing. Let individuals, or groups, or classes, visit and exchange stories.
(7) The child’s part, _telling similar stories_ and (8) _inventing_ stories, should go without saying. Do not neglect the opportunity offered by (8). If you reduce the class to workable groups at a time for this exercise, it should be practicable. Do not press prematurely the creative imagination, but do not neglect it. Give play to the natural working of a little child’s fancy, the boy’s or girl’s, the youth’s imagination. It is wise to follow the lead of the child here, then be at hand, not to deprive the child of the efficiency of independence and of the pleasure of making, but to help when necessary that his attempt may be encouragingly successful.
(9) _It is sometimes expressing story images in other media._ Here, again, the adult will do well to follow the lead of the child; of course of the most freely expressive child. The inert must be stimulated. Left to himself the child would not commit some of the excesses in sensible representation that adults impose upon children, though objective representation is natural to man at the childlike stage. It is not necessary that the child represent materially every set of language ideas. The teacher should not, on the other hand, stop natural attempt to represent even the more elusive kinds of ideas; there may be a budding Watts or Chase in her class, capable of picturing the highly fanciful and spiritual.
Keep the exercise growing. Its aim is to give constructive outlet to the child. The child’s conception of the story, with expression of it and each re-hearing, is growing. The practice of keeping a child’s first attempts at expression in drawing or modeling or cutting or his attempts at any one stage too long about the classroom, before his eyes, is dwarfing. There is, of course, the other side to the question. To accept nothing as accomplishment is deadening to effort. It is possible, however, is it not, to meet the child on childlike standard of achievement, to acknowledge the day’s accomplishment, yet without disheartening him, or even talking to him about the better things he will do, to keep _our_ own faces turned toward the morrow?
(10) _It is playing the stories._ This, if not done with every story without discrimination, or without reference to the children’s instinctive selective sense, if kept at least fairly spontaneous and progressive, is a form of constructivity heartily enjoyed by the children. It is wise here again to follow the child’s lead. Let us understand, however, by this the lead of the majority of our most normal children and of the most gifted individuals. Many children meager in imagination, feeble in initiative, inadequate in execution, will need the strong lead of other children or of the teacher, qualified child seer from her experience with more favored children. Let her give to these from her abundance, becoming best playfellow and guide. But let her keep herself in the attitude of _playing with the children_.
Let us see how playing the story might develop. As soon as the story takes possession of the child he shows a tendency to enter into its persons and its action; to mimic the voices, to ape the manners, to do the doings. Give outlet to this; let the child take on and play out the life of the story, or yourself propose playing the story.
Do not, by the way, clutter up the child’s direct outlet with staging and properties and stage terms. It destroys spontaneity and reality. Let the schoolroom be the place, and, as a rule, the school furnishings any necessary things, and the school children, in their ordinary clothes, the people. The delight of “dressing up” may sometimes be allowed; but a mere suggestion in costume, if it be something distinctive of the character impersonated, is all that is necessary; a gold paper crown, for example, will at once make a queen of any child. Why not with the little children talk simply and naturally: “Let us play” (not act nor dramatize) so and so. Who’ll be so and so? I’ll be so and so. Where will you have your home? And so on. Do not at the beginning _press_ even this simple kind of planning; let the play develop with the playing of it. Help the children, however, gradually to gain in planning.
Playing has a tendency to make the form static; it is a mistake to let this happen too soon. Do not, as is the practice, stop telling the story yourself after the children have once played it. You will find that their intimate experience in playing it will bring a more pointed attention to the next hearing of it, and that their next playing will be richer in detail, or stronger in structure, or truer in characterization, or more appropriate in dialogue. Do not, of course, keep the children on one story either for playing or other form of reproduction until they weary of it.
Far from deploring, by the way, the child’s crudities in dialogue, appreciate the opportunity to let him express himself and to develop his language sense. Keep the language way open to him. He will catch the force of your comment on how some character spoke, himself suggest to another pupil what the person the pupil is impersonating should say, note how you talk when you impersonate, or how you respond in dialogue with him.
Playing the stories is open to educational abuse by being turned into insincere show work. This results, too, in exclusion of pupils who do not excel. Keep playing the stories, at least for the little children, the spontaneous universal thing they make it—_play_. Their own selective sense guides them in assigning or assuming rôles. It is abused, also, by adult patronage. The teacher laughs at the children rather than with them, or laughs when the true child seer would be serious. The child thoroughly enjoys playing the stories, but this does not mean that he laughs constantly or at his own performance. Encourage him to catch the fun or humor of a situation or of a remark; enjoy the playing openly when it is merry, laugh and laugh heartily, but do not turn his genuine playing into a sham. Do not, on the other hand, take him too seriously; he does not always take himself so. In short, get the child’s point of view here as elsewhere.
The “last’s the best of all the game;” it is (11) _growing by the power and grace of the story_.