Voice Lessons

By David W. Major

UOTE TABLE HERE--->

It’s only 9:15 a.m. in Diane Jannuzzelli’s 4th grade class at Harrison Elementary School in Roselle, New Jersey, and already she has a menagerie on her hands. On this crisp autumn morning, her students are roaming the classroom, acting like animals. As they shuffle among their desks, while “getting into character,” Paula Davidoff, the other teacher in the classroom, is delighted.

Davidoff is actually a guest at Harrison. A professional storyteller, she’s been at the public school for five days straight as part of a residency to tell stories to students. She also is teaching the children how to tell stories themselves. One of the keys to imparting a tale, she has instructed them, is to gesture and speak as your characters would; it makes the delivery more compelling. So today, the kids are behaving in the manner of lions, frog princesses, and bears (and...