Welcome to PAPAYA and welcome to SPIN. We’re interested in doing what we can to stimulate conversation at home surrounding our projects – adults and kids together. To that end, we offer this activity guide. Use it if you like it. Let us know if it’s useful!
Very best to you,
The PAPAYA team
Suffragette Frances Willard, who learned to ride a bike when she was 53, wrote a book about her experience learning to ride. She gave these pieces of advice:
“She who succeeds in riding a bicycle gains mastery in life.”
“First the goal, then the momentum.”
“Do not look down.”
“You will do this thing best by not trying at all.”
“The microscope will not set you free.”
“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.”
Have you ever had an experience that changes how you see and understand other things in life? Was learning to ride a bike as big a deal for you as it was for Francis?
Evalyn likes to play with words. She creates refrains or phrases that use metaphor and rhythm.
A single word can hold several different ideas. When Evalyn finds multiple meanings in a word she gives them to you over and over so your brain can put all the meanings together. Sometimes this makes you laugh, sometimes it gives you a new understanding of the world.
Materials: bicycle, pencil, sheet of paper,

Prepare yourself. Open your eyes and ears. Go out and ride! Look hard and listen carefully.
Remember 5 things you see and 5 things you hear that were new observations. Jot them down.
Imagine having 10 new experiences every time you ride. Possible?
Materials: tape measure, calculator, brain, string (optional), waterproof paint (optional), bicycle
(optional)
How many revolutions does it take for a woman to get around the world?
The bicycle is a very efficient machine for traveling around town. But how many times would your wheels have to revolve to make it around the world? You figure it out.
How big is the world?
The earth is a sphere (ball) with a circumference of 24,901 miles.
How far do you travel each time you bicycle wheels go around?
The distance you travel on each revolution is equal to the circumference of your bike tire (this is
How do you figure out the wheel’s circumference?
 Measuring: Use a tape measure, or wrap a string around the wheel and measure the string.
 Art: make a tire print. Apply washable paint to your rear tire and ride over a long sheet of paper. Use a different color to mark the end of the cycle. Measure to where the end color comes up.
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How many wheel revolutions does it take to travel one mile?
Take a guess first.
Divide the number of feet in a mile (5,280) by how many feet you travel with each cycle of the wheels. How close was your guess?
How many wheel turns does it take to travel around the earth?
Annie Londonderry claimed to have circumnavigated the globe—meaning she traveled the earth’s circumference, the same distance as around the equator. Because she didn’t actually pedal across oceans, the actual distance of her bicycle trip is much less. For this calculation, however, let’s pretend she biked the entire way! Take a guess first.
Multiply the number of wheel turns per mile by the number of miles (24,901) around the globe.
How close was your guess?
Discussion topics for hanging out
Use these topics according to your own personal interests and curiosity.
Topic 1: Mining Memory
What do you remember about the performance, storytelling techniques, story-content, and about your feelings?
1.
What storytelling techniques did Evalyn use to tell her story?
 Words, music, video, instruments (of course you can get very detailed here: words you remember, number of instruments, types of sound, images remembered).
2.
What were her songs about? What stories did she tell with her songs?
 Her first experience on a bicycle – what do you remember about that story?
 What was it like to be a girl in 1895 – What do you remember from the song?
 What did Amelia Bloomer design? Why did she invent this new fashion?
 Frances Willard’s Advice for Riding a Bicycle. What advice did she offer?
 Story of Annie Londonderry – what do you remember about her?
3.
What kinds of things are important to Evalyn? How do you know?
Topic 2: Storytelling Techniques
Evalyn does a lot of interesting, smart things as a storyteller.
She tells a story with: Costumes. Music. Humor. Video.
 She connects history to her own experience of a riding a bike.
 She grounds her big ideas in concrete images, using the bicycle literally and metaphorically as a vehicle for understanding autobiography, biography, and political
movements.
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 She also uses refrains to reinforce big ideas.
 She plays with words, finding double meanings.
Identify some storytelling techniques. Here are some ideas.
 Sketch a bicycle. Focus on the drawing the functional elements, rather than being concerned about proportion and detail. Have them label the parts of the bike. Have them make a list of truths about a riding a bicycle. Ask them to then use the words and images they have created to write something about their experience of the performance.
 Songs are like a series of short stories. Recall songs from the show, and maybe write a song about your personal experience of adventures on a bicycle.
 Make a list of things girls shouldn’t do in 1895. Make a list of things girls shouldn’t do now.
How do you feel about these lists?
Make Your Own Cabaret
 Find an ordinary object (a box, a chair, a book). See if you can make 6 different kinds of sounds with or on your object.
 Write 6 lines about your object.
 See if you can use one of those lines metaphorically.
 Put your sounds and words together
 Have you begun to write a song?
 Can you keep going? Or imagine how you’d like to develop this further?
 Can you include a friend or two in your band?
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