New Educational Storytelling Website Launches

Posted on January 8, 1999

The ancient art of storytelling has moved into the modern realms of cyberspace with the launch of a new educational website, Story Arts Online. Funded by a Bell Atlantic Foundation grant to Story Arts of Huntington, the site has been created by award winning storyteller/author Heather Forest and web designer/educator Kim Foglia of WriteDesign. Story Arts Online is a place for teachers and librarians who would like to include storytelling in their classrooms to enhance student's speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.

Heather Forest, founder and Executive Director of Story Arts says, "There is a renewed interest among educators in the art of storytelling. English Language Arts Standards now require students to be competent listeners and speakers as well as readers and writers. Storytelling offers an engaging medium through which students can explore and improve communication skills." Kim Foglia of WriteDesign adds, "Our goal was to design a site that is colorful, fun, and user friendly. We want Story Arts Online to be an easy-to-use introduction to the Internet for teachers, so they begin to welcome this valuable technology into their classroom."

The site includes storytelling lesson plans, a story library of concise folktale plots for students to retell, tips and techniques for helping children become effective storytellers, advice on collecting family histories, activities to support the New York State English Language Arts Standards, and extensive links for teachers to reach other language arts lesson plan sites and educational resources on Web.

Story Arts is a Huntington, NY, based not-for-profit arts o rganization that offers storytelling concerts and workshops in schools, libraries, and community cultural centers. Story Arts' programming focuses on the diverse ways that storytelling can enrich inter-personal communication, multi-cultural awareness and literacy. Heather Forest, Executive Director of Story Arts, is a professional storyteller, author, and recording artist who has published four children's picture books, two folktale collections and seven recordings of storytelling.