Creating and telling stories
An ability to relate to stories is a facility we all have regardless of how different we are from one another. Through stories, people make personal connections and they pay attention to what is important to them. We use stories because:
- A story is a good starting point for getting people to explore and express their experience and to think about their own values, motivations, attitudes, and behaviour and their work practice and culture. This is particularly important in situations where many people many not be used to discussions of this kind.
- Anyone can engage with a story (if told effectively) regardless of their confidence with reading, writing and speaking in a group or their cultural background or history.
- One story can provide a link to investigate a whole range of issues. What people notice and respond to and the connections they make will differ widely and and that in itself provides good learning for a group.
- Stories encourage people to share their own experience and to engage emotionally with the issues we want to explore.
- Stories help people look at a situation from different perspectives and so broaden the field of interest.
For examples of plays and interactive stories that we've developed follow this link.
For examples of stories told in different ways follow this link.