Summer Adventures
Summertime is the perfect season for family adventures. Vacations, family reunions, weddings, day trips, summer camps and more are filled with stories about certain people, places and things that are important to you. You want to remember these treasured memories because they have special meaning and because you often want to share them with others.
You don’t need to be a folklorist or a brilliant literary
writer to capture these summer experiences and transform them into family
folktales. You don’t even have to be an adult to preserve these personalized
accounts of real life adventures and activities.
In fact, all you need is a basic understanding of what
folktales are and some examples of ways to create them that can be tailored to
any age group.
Folktales are stories based upon real life experiences.
Unlike historical documents they are not necessarily based upon fact; but
rather grow out of your feelings and impressions about those experiences. For example, a folktale about Uncle Bill’s
deep sea fishing trip might focus upon how hard he fought to bring in a large
fish or upon how funny it was to see him huff and puff as he reeled in his fishing
line.
However you describe your summer stories, they can be
categorized into various themes, also known as folktale motifs that everyone is
familiar with. Using the example of Uncle Bill’s fishing trip, here are a few
of the more common motifs:
- The fish that got away
- A brave fisherman
- Fishing as a favorite sport
When you sit down to capture what you recall, remember that
there are many easy-to-follow techniques you can use:
- Make a list that you might later expand upon (for example: picnic near the lake, warm sunset, playing cards)
- Write a few paragraphs or a short poem
- Draw images, using colors that are expressive
Children in particular enjoy drawing pictures. Ask them to
tell you their stories and write down what they say next to the drawing. Then
plan an “exhibit” or “reading” at a later date so that they get to share their
folktales.
If more than one person, or child, is creating a family
folktale about the same person, place or event it is important to remember that
not everyone in the family will have
the same memories. Some may recall what is funny while others may recall what
is sad about the same event or person. There may even be disagreement about
what actually happened. That’s O.K. because folktales are personal
interpretations.
For an unusual family folktale project, consider
having everyone in the family write about different aspects of a vacation and
then put them all together as a family folktale book. Emily can write about the
bears at the zoo and Sean can write about the kangaroos. At a family reunion,
consider having everyone write something they remember about other family
reunions.
No matter which summer adventures you choose to focus on,
you can create family folktales that will last more than a lifetime.
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