Soaring Stories

Regi worked for a decade through the Lincoln Center Aesthetic Education Institutes, the Leonard Bernstein Institute and the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts as an artist in residence throughout New York State. A certified elementary teacher, Regi is well trained to link curriculum and aesthetic principles in these tailor made workshops. Workshops are available for students, faculty and administration in storytelling, writing and storytelling, creative dramatics and the literary process, and the story drama across the curriculum.

“Thank you for your docent workshop. It was a wonderful combination of skills, technique, teaching and inspired goofiness. We all had a wonderful time and achieved our goals.”
-Linda Price, Johnson Museum of Art

Keynotes

Oh, the Stories We Can Tell Keynote Presentation

“The perfect combination of poignancy and humor.”
-Advocacy First

Organizations define themselves through the stories they tell. This uplifting and inspirational keynote presentation focuses on celebrating and reminding each person of their significant contribution to the health and wholeness of their organization, profession or vocation.

Mrs. Carter was Great!

This motivational and heartwarming keynote is full of the foibles, disasters and success stories of teachers and teaching. This workshop has been presented for Head Start, Cornell University , the Reading Association of New York State , and Day Care Councils and Teachers Associations throughout the country.

Workshops for Educators

Tiny Tales – telling stories with objects.

Children love small things. Children love stories. This workshop puts the two together and focuses on telling, sequencing, and retelling stories from around the world with small objects, which later become a literacy center in your classroom. The purpose of the Tiny Tales workshop is threefold: to share and demonstrate stories from around the world that are told with miniature objects such as dolls, origami, string, boxes and fabric. Secondly, teachers are given an opportunity to learn and practice telling these stories with the objects. Thirdly, focus is given to creating a visually stimulating and effective literacy center in the classroom where students will practice retelling, listening and dramatizing stories. This workshop provides a packet of storytelling resources and patterns for preschool teachers, parents and caregivers.

Bringing Books to Life

A Creative Story Drama and Writing Workshop for Teachers and Administrators. When using story drama as an active part of your classroom curriculum teachers and students understand literature as play. Writing becomes a natural extension of the literary process. The story drama is an active and participatory learning experience that allows the teacher to link curriculum through literature while exploring values, feelings, and facts in a structured play-based mode. This workshop has been presented at the NYS Reading Conference, the NAEYC National Conference and many elementary schools, conferences and symposiums throughout the Northeast.

This workshop can be presented in a 60 min., 90 min.or 3 hour format.

This workshop meets these NYS Learning Standards:
ELA 1,2,3,4
The Arts 1,2,3,4

From the Page to the Stage

This workshop is for everyone who would like to learn the ancient art of telling a story. Through imagery, movement, listening and partnering participants will learn the basics of telling a story in a way that is uniquely your own. Participants focus on vocal production, staging a story, characterization, creating the story from your storehouse of imagination and personalizing the tale to fit your style and intent.

This workshop meets these NYS Learning Standards:
ELA 1,2,3,4
The Arts 1,2,3,4

Workshops for Students

Say It Loud

K – 5th grade

This new storytelling workshop focuses on beginning storytelling technique and style. It incorporates movement, descriptive language, reading, writing and original story creation to help students, parents, and others tell a story. In this deceptively simple act we promote real community and unity through story.

Tiny Tales or It’s in the Bag!

Pre-K – 2nd grade

This multicultural workshop focuses on storytelling with objects from around the world for the very young (ages 3-6). Small children love miniature things. The story bag holds small objects that are used to tell and retell stories from books and the oral tradition. The story bag is an easy traveling literacy center that can be utilized by the teacher and children inside and out.

Songs that Tell, Stories that Sing!

2nd – 5th grade

Tell a story in rap or opera or verse or as a blues tale. It’s easy and fun as we transform a story into a song and add accompaniment with everything from a pot to a box to a banjo. Especially good for students who would otherwise be too shy to tell a tale, this workshop seamlessly integrates stories with songs and song as story.

This workshop meets these NYS Learning Standards:
ELA 1,2,3,4
The Arts 1,2,3,4

Workshops for Adults

Speaking the Self

Speaking your personal story is a powerful tool of transformation. As you tell the story of your life’s journey, previously undiscovered patterns and themes surface and reveal themselves. When you listen to the stories of others, you connect with their lives—and their stories serve as mirrors that connect and define you to your self. In this day long workshop, we create a story map to identify personal stories, engage in simple movement and breathing exercises, write, listen and reflect. Wear comfortable clothing and bring a notebook.

Moments, Memories and Memoirs

When does a memory become a story? What is the difference between a story and a conversation? When we apply storytelling craft to the moments of our lives, we give our lives personal and universal meaning. This workshop focuses on crafting a personal tale into memoirs that express our lives, our ancestors and the common themes of existence.

The Mythic Journey

This workshop uses the framework of myth to identify, celebrate and question which myths are propelling our lives, choices and identities. Using archetypal characters we look within to discover the myth we are living. Excellent for writers, students and folks trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

Telling the Family Tree

Stories shared from our own experiences strengthen our understanding of identity, culture and unique family life. This workshop focuses on evoking, shaping and sharing stories from our lives and the lives of our family members. We will explore our stories in both oral and written form.