A viagem das histórias: da voz ao livro, do livro à voz, da voz ao palco

Abstract

The article discusses a project conducted in southwest England, now in its third year, based on oral retellings of different ancient myths and contemporary literature in schools, aimed at the recreation of the stories by children on stage. The author explores four main aspects of the children's involvement with narrated stories. The first is their deep belief in stories told orally, which is understood as rich ground for future work, whether it is writing, visual artwork, or as in this case, the creation of a new piece of drama. The second aspect is memorability, specially valuable in the context of a play-making project that needs to involve every child in mixed ability classes, going beyond conventional academic ability. The third aspect is the story power to promote the inventiveness of children, particularly if they can count on a teacher who listens to, prompts and encourages them to recreate the stories. The last aspect is a sense of community, which involves a shared ownership of the story: from responsive teaching, comes children’s confidence and desire to help each other develop theatre through language, movement, costume, music and visual art. The article concludes emphasizing that children's abilities to believe, remember, invent and create communities - abilities that listening to and playing with stories in school settings help promote - are crucial to their literary and aesthetic experience in a broader sense.