Dear families and teachers,
Whew! What a wild two weeks. From cutting out puppets to scribbling myths by the waterfront, Story Lab students experimented with telling stories about the animals and the natural landscape of Sitka.
Elementary school students got a special shadow puppetry workshop with Kimi Eisele, our Rasmuson Foundation artist-in-residence. Shadow puppetry is an ancient form of storytelling that involves cutting out figures and holding them between a light source and a screen. It has a long tradition in Southeast Asia, as well as South Asia, East Asia, and Western Europe.
Our storytellers picked their animal of choice from Sitka, drew them, and cut them out with an X-Acto knife. Suddenly, the desks began to crash under the weight of brown bears, killer whales, black-tailed deer, Chinook salmon, and sea lions! Our creatures roamed throughout the rooms of the Island Institute. Then – an ocean fell from the sky! All the land creatures died except for the buck, which happened to have gills.
Middle school students embarked on our weeks-long project to write and self-publish new myths of Sitka and its natural landscape. We read the Tlingit story, “How the Mosquito Came to Be,” as a model for how to write an origin story about a natural phenomenon or creature. We ventured to the harbor by Lincoln Street to write origin stories about Southeast Alaska’s landscape. This week, we began editing the myths. We aim to finish them and publish them using our book-making equipment by December.
High school students began to work on a group-identified passion: children’s picture books. We drew pictures of animals that evoked strong reactions in ourselves. We sat on the rug and read aloud a classic book, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback. We identified the main problem that the protagonist faces. Then we brainstormed problems that kids might face: for example, “is forgiveness worth it?” and “obeying parents.” Together, we grouped them under themes. Each of us picked one problem to write a story about – starring the animals we sketched at the beginning of class! Brianna wrote a vivid, suspenseful story about greed starring two turtles.
Story Lab hosts free, after-school creative writing and storytelling classes to students ages 7-19. Elementary school sessions meet every other Tuesday 3:00-4:30, middle school every Wednesday 3:30-5:00, and high school every Thursday 4:15-5:30. For questions, contact the number above or sarah@iialaska.org.