Telling Your Story: Experiential Source

Students were able to witness The Healing Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Hope and Transformation, performed by Professor Morejon. The piece, commissioned by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders, Margate, 2014, was meant to illustrate the rich creativity that exists in personal experience and how important it is to empower students to make sense and create meaning out of their life experiences.  Following the existential phenomenological approach, the piece illustrates how those stories can also be an epistemological tool when using experience to create knowledge and perform that knowledge.

A number of videos were also shared with the class to give examples of how diverse story telling can be and how it can be approach from different points of view.

LINK: Introduction to Story Telling

LINK: Your Unique Perspective

LINK: A Story of Mixed Emotions

Link: The Technology of Storytelling

Exercise:

The students wrote their own individual stories in an attempt to stimulate their use of personal experiences as a source of creative knowledge.

Some students expressed concerned about their stories being published, reason why we are providing just the titles:

• X Factor Audition by Dani Krueger
• 
  
• Uncle Adam by Paige Bailey Frankel
• 
  
• Never Gave Up by Paige Dottie
• 
  
• Skating Interrupted by Stephanie Longmuir
• 
  
• A Beach Day by Mae Corrigan
• 
  
• Graving by Amanda Kuperman
• 
  
• Craziest Time by Alex Kaleel
• 
  
• Once a Cane Always a Cane by Karla Flores
• 
  
• Change by Julia Rose
• 
  
•  I Wouldn't Change a Thing by Richard Gallagher
• 
  
• Chances and Choices by Michael Irving

S   T  O   R   I    E   S

The Boy Who Learned to Fly

By Drew Mouacdie

There once was a young boy whose dream was to fly. Even from his earliest memories of traveling with his parents, he was enamored with flying. From being lucky enough to see the inside of one of the world's largest passenger jets to getting his "wings" courtesy of a generous flight crew member; he always wondered what it would be like to hold the controls; to take flight; to defy gravity in the way of his great grandfather, an aeronautical engineer; to be free.

But it was that desire; that unending want and seemingly insatiable appetite to be free that led to anything but. As he got older and was faced with opportunities to defy what seemed like gravity, the boy was unaware that what was holding him backwash was really holding him together. The higher he got the more the world around him got larger than what he could bear. Until one day, the boy was lost, flying, blind, absent of what he needed, or so he thought.

The boy learned that what he thought was weight was merely lightness; and weight, that for all its restrictions, meant that he was loved and did not have to fear the unknown. This weight was comfortable, and was found to be the pressure needed to hold things together. Like an aircraft, the boy learned that without pressure, life is a vacuum eager to explode from the inside out. Without this pressure flight would not exist; for this is a force that keeps one grounded in what is real; and in reality, what goes up must come down.

Green in the Sky

By Ariella Tigertail

It all started with gravel under her barefoot, sharp and a little painful, but she didn't mind. She was on a mission to catch the green dragonfly that's escaped her net days before. Don't worry she didn't hurt them, just admired their beauty, then let them go. A few bug bites made their home on her baby feet, but this was an every day thing. She was used to it. She felt the most free with her barefeet. 

The sun was at its strongest, burning the checks of the little native girl in the camp. She swooshed and swooshed the net, always missing the green dragonfly. It vanished as if it were playing a game of hide and seek. She sighed and slowly walked to the porch dragging her net and bug holder. 

Then, a lucky surprise. The green dragon fly landed on her left shoulder. She stopped in her tracks and dropped what was in her hands. She put out her little finger and the green dragonfly croweld onto her point and she admired its beauty it flew away and from that day on, she admired from a distance, but still rumbaed the gravel under her bare feet.

The Brave Little Skater
By Stefanie Gonzalez

"Tata, are we there yet?" My little sister asked for the sixth time. 

"Just another five minutes," I answered as patently as someone who has been asked the same questions for an hour drive could be. But, as I looked in the rearview mirror and saw my little sister bouncing in her seat with excitement, my heart felt full. She hasn't't stopped talking about going to the ice skating rink all week. She's been "practicing with her softest socks and "gliding" around our tiled living room.

She was the first one out of the car when we arrived and the first of us to figure out how to put on the rented pair of ice skates. We approached the edge of the rink and I noticed a moment of terror. Pure fright of the ice from the self-proclaimed "future professional national figure skater?" That was a shock.

I helped her onto the ice and showed her the basics. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Arms out for balance. Back slightly at an angle.

She found comfort in holding on the wall of the rink for the whole laps. The nervous look still obvious on her face. But, I knew my sister and I knew that she wanted to learn how to ice skate more than anything else.

When it was time for her to try skating away from the wall, her moves were not as graceful as a gazelle. Rather, she had the grace of a rusty robot. A few feet into her movements, she fell right on her bottom with a loud "plop." I giggled and ensured her that that was part of the learning. She tried again and fell right back down. Again, and then another "plop."

After the fourth "plop," she remained sitting on the ice and wouldn't get up. With tears pouring out of her eyes, she weakly said that she couldn't do it anymore and that she just wanted to go home. "I'll never be a good figure skater," she cried.

In that moment, I saw myself in my defeated sister. All the times I was scared to try something new or picked on for not being able to do something right. And it broke my heart to remember how I gave up softball because I wasn't as good or would never play as well as my team members.

I sat on the cold ice with my sister, gave her the tightest hug possible and told her that I knew she was going to be a beautiful figure skater.

"Mimi, it's all about practice. It's about falling down, but getting back up every time. Some day, you'll be doing twirls around me. But today, let's try try moving forward. Don't give up."

I stood back up and offered her my hand. After, a few more sniffles, she took my hand, took a deep breath, and gave my a subtle nod suggesting that she was ready to try again. I smiled back at her, my brave, strong girl. And we slowly, carefully skated around  the rink. Together