Let Me Tell You a Story…..
On Friday, 1st February, Don Valley library played host to the wonderful storyteller and
author Richard O’Neill. Along with students from our ‘Pageturners’ group, also taking part
were visiting students from two of our local primaries, Toll Bar and Bentley High Street.
The workshop was designed to look at the power of story, and the fun which can be got from
listening to stories and from creating stories of your own. We worked through a series of
activities, at first as a whole group, and later in smaller mixed groups. The students had the
opportunity to practice and develop both their speaking and listening, and their writing skills,
in a fun and enjoyable way. The workshop was also intended to encourage the Don Valley
students to work with students from other schools and take a lead in group work.
Richard began by telling some stories of his own. He has a very relaxed and engaging style,
which is deceptively simple, introducing characters and situations that might at first seem
unrelated, then weaving them together in a way that takes his audience along with him and
makes them really care about what happens. His stories are, in the main, about ‘ordinary’
people such as his neighbours, but by putting them into challenging or unusual situations he
demonstrated how fascinating the ‘ordinary’ can be. He also read a short piece from his own
latest book ‘Trike-Horse’ and discussed the problems faced by the hero, a boy called Roman.
The next stage was to get the students’ creative juices flowing. They were asked to write
down the name of a character, ‘Stan the stunt-man’. Richard described this person as
overweight, inept, in short not at all your stereotypical picture of what a stuntman might be!
He then went on to say how Stan, by some miracle, had got a job on a James Bond movie
being filmed in Doncaster, and how he was going to have to jump a car over the river Don.
By a series of misadventures, Stan manages to wreck the fabulous car he was supposed to use
and has to come up with an alternative in a hurry. The only option, again, is something
completely ridiculous, a tiny pink Barbie bike! The students were asked to work in small
groups of three and four, each group having one Don Valley student. They then had find
ways to describe this bike to make it seem like a good option for a stunt, while never giving
away what type of vehicle it is!
The next stage asked the students to begin to create their own characters. Each group had to
create two characters and think about what they might look like, sound like, and how they
would interact together. The results were really interesting and quite diverse, ranging from a
bull and a dog, to teenagers with attitude and even a robot! Once this was done, Richard led
a whole-group discussion on these characters and how each might develop further. Then, for
the final part of the workshop, the groups each had to create a problem scenario for their
characters, and resolve it, writing a story in the process. As the stories were read out to the
group as a whole we heard some fantastic ideas, and it was amazing how much work had
been done in a relatively short time. The groups worked really well together and there was a
good, mutually supportive atmosphere. By making it fun and keeping the level of enthusiasm
high, Richard had almost got the students to do story-writing by stealth!
Our visitors had to leave at two thirty, so we didn’t have time to get written feedback from
then, but they certainly all appeared very happy as they left! Overall, it was a positive
experience linked to reading and the library and very enjoyable and worthwhile.
The feedback from the Don Valley students was, on the whole, very positive, as can be seen
from the feedback comments below;
‘We got to make our own stories up and that went well, it was amazing.’ Lottie, Y9
‘I have had fun and loved listening to the different stories told by Richard O’Neil’
Brittany, Y8
‘I really enjoyed going in to work with different children from Toll Bar and Bentley
High Street’. Katie B, Y8
‘I have enjoyed working with the primary kids and making our own stories and
creating different characters.’ Chloe-Marie, Y8
‘The thing I enjoyed today was listening to the stories…..Richard O’Neill read a book
called trike-horse they were very good to listen to.’ Elizabeth Y8
‘I think Mr O’Neill is very inspirational’ Naomi, Y7.
‘I liked it a lot it was funny, easy and great’ Daisy Y8.
Lyn Hopson
Librarian, Don Valley Academy