Oral storytelling is the oldest form of human news sharing and that makes sense — our brains are wired to remember stories! With traditions across the globe, many predating writing systems, storytelling takes many forms. In some West African traditions griot (pronounced gree-oh) — community knowledge keepers sometimes also known as jeliw — used storytelling to preserve history or teach lessons. Griot sometimes used musical instruments to enhance their stories. Information traditions like this were brought to the Americas by enslaved peoples from Africa to create new forms of storytelling. For example, the Gullah Geechee people in the southeastern United States have preserved centuries-old storytelling traditions to this day.
Before European colonization in what is now the United States, there was also a strong storytelling tradition in many Indigenous nations and tribes. No two peoples used exactly the same methods in their storytelling techniques, but many of these traditions are still in use today. Native Americans of the Northern Great Plains used winter counts, a pictographic record, to support their storytellers as a way to preserve and share Indigenous knowledge.
Step into the shoes of a storyteller. Think about the story of your day and how you would tell it to someone else. Then, from the list below choose four words that relate to your day. Consider: How did the words you selected help you remember your day? Did they help you to organize your story better? Could sharing those words help someone better remember your story and make it easier for them to retell it? Do you think the description of your day is more accurate when you use actions or feelings to describe it?
Directions:Drag the words that you would use to describe your day to the boxes on the right.
Today in our digital world we can take inspiration from global storytelling traditions to help us understand how to craft the stories we share. We can take guidance from these traditions to better determine how to highlight important themes in the information we share and make sure our messages get across.
