From: Stacy Whitman <stacer11>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 01:09:47 -0400

I tried to send this earlier, but my internet connection had problems, so I wasn't sure if it actually went out. My apologies if this is a double posting.

Stacy
----- Original Message ----- From: Stacy Whitman To: Subscribers of ccbc-net Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 9:58 AM Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Reading vs Story


Thanks for that eloquent message, Monica. I agree that it's story that takes me--whether it's someone telling me their eventful week, or a good movie, or a good book. I've been thinking also about cultures who don't/didn't have written language and for whom an oral tradition was paramount. Recently at work (I work for an educational publisher), I was writing a short biography of Deganawida, who helped
(along with Hiawatha) convince the leaders of the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) nations to form the confederation that brought internal peace for several hundred years. The storytellers tell the story of the founding of the Haudenosaunee League at festivals and gatherings every year. Sometime in the last 500 years, I think
(sorry, don't have the resources with me), the storytellers got together to compare versions to ensure accuracy, and most versions were mostly correct--and this is after 5 or 6 hundred years of telling the same story. His story is available to us because of that strong oral tradition. I admire how well people with oral traditions can remember so much without the written word.

I've wondered at the feeling that reading in and of itself is of supreme importance. I think reading is a tool, to allow us to absorb some sort of information for a variety of purposes--for story, for the functional literacy Monica speaks of teaching, and as a vehicle for intellectual discourse, etc. Personally, I love to read. I've always been the bookworm of my family. My sister, an artist, doesn't read a lot, but I wouldn't say that she had any less sense of story than I do. I just think she expresses it/exchanges it in a different way, through the discourse of art, and even in her conversation. How many of us tell each other little stories--I've had the most horrible day; you'll never believe what just happened to me; guess who I saw on the street just now; that bank teller was so rude to me... etc.

Maybe I'm missing the mark, but I think that Monica's got a point.

Stacy Whitman


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Monica R. Edinger
  To: Subscribers of ccbc-net
  Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:38 AM
  Subject: [ccbc-net] Reading vs Story


  I'll go out on a limb and say that while I don't consider reading that
  important to life, I do think story is. I love to read myself, but often
  wonder how I'd cope in a dire and longterm situation (say imprisonment)
  without anything to read. I figure I'd tell myself stories in my head:
  old ones and new ones. I'd make do without books. I'd survive through
  stories.

  I suspect that this stance is the result of my two years in Sierra Leone
  as a Peace Corps Volunteer. If I had not spent so much time in a place
  where people have emotionally and spiritually rich lives without reading I
  would probably feel differently. Functional literacy was what those of us
  who taught aimed for. We weren't teaching so that people in Sierra Leone
  would read books the way I do. Just so they could read basic forms and
  signs. Sure, it would be great if they could read books too, but I'm
  bothered (no doubt this is the result of my Peace Corp training and
  subsequent degree in International Education) at the way we privilige
  reading and the book and tend to overlook (and, too often, look down
  upon) the other ways people worldwide receive and send out information.
  Popular culture is a piece of this. (My students and I raised money for
  handcranked radios for Sierra Leoneans a few years ago. Books? One radio
  for a whole village seemed much more important to us.)

  Today I see a wealth of ways to receive and present stories: in addition
  to traditional book experiences (private reading, reading aloud, etc.)
  there are films (good bad and horrible), blogs, graphic novels, web pages,
  video games, radio, television, and more.

  So while reading may be at risk, it seems to me story is not.

  Monica




  Monica Edinger
  The Dalton School
  New York NY
  edinger at dalton.org
  monicaedinger at yahoo.com


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Received on Sun 18 Jul 2004 12:09:47 AM CDT