The Biggest Liar

Three things I learned about storytelling are _it has guidelines, not hard fast rules (reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean), it is important to like your main character and as a story teller you need to construct anticipation  but the most important thing I learned  is a story teller must infuse wonder. 

This reminded me of the time I met Bill Lepp, at least a 5 time champion of the WV Biggest Liars contest, and he told us a great tale that was started by a couple words the small group threw out to him. I’m not even sure how long the story went but it was an evening session and we were all entirely engrossed in the story.

Here is a link to the NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5435852

Here is a link to the WV StoryTelling Project  http://wvstorytellingproject.com/storytellingproject/liarsstories.html

Here is a link to his web site http://leppstorytelling.com/

*****

 "As a result, American elementary and secondary students do not have their full First Amendment rights either in school or out of school." Pg. 96 

I don't know where I stand on this. I think students should have to respect teachers and classmates, whether this is inside or outside the classroom.  Students shouldn't have the right to bully or defame other students or teachers. I have heard too many students speak disrespectfully to teachers in the classroom. They do this because they are allowed to. There are no consequences for this type of behavior. I think there has to be some rules or there will be chaos.  No one can learn in chaos of this type. 

www.mycutegraphics.com (free clipart) 

"Today, every teacher needs to be a media composition teacher." Pg. 85 

This may be true, but a lot of teachers in the classroom were not trained to work with media the way it is used today.  This requires a great deal of time, energy and possibly money and puts the burden on teachers to be able to learn this and teach it.  I realize that being in the teaching profession means you are a life long learner. Most teachers are just built this way, but some are not. I would like to see more PD offered at no cost and during appropriate times for teachers so they can become media composition teachers. 

www.wordsofworthimpact.com (currently unavailable)

Hobbs, Renee. Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Corwin Press, 2011.