Missing Histories for Frome Festival

This saturday we have a real treat planned, a new Storywalk trail called 'The Missing Histories' which is an opportunity for our Festival Workshop Storywalkers this Saturday to add their own mark on Frome by writing location based history.

The Storywalk engine can easily be used as a history machine, but I am always very cautious about following this thread. History, as we all know is being constantly re written and re remembered, the very phrase History - His Story suggests that the news is only one persons point of view at a certain point in time.

Recently I was delivering a workshop and one of the attendees pointed at a wall and said 'my dad built that'. It was such a refreshing thing to hear, a piece of tangible history which we can lean against and touch has a story still today, a connection with the people walking by. Then looking around at every laid stone and every paving slab I thought of their history, their story of how they came to be.

But what if we took this a little step further and added a tiny pice of history ourselves? What if we took the liberty to go just that little bit further than perhaps the Blue Badge Tour Guides would be happy with! Where would that lead, what histories would we create for future generations to read and enjoy, how far can we go and still keep on the ground?

So this Saturday, we will hopefully find out with a little bit of history in the making! Family tickets are £5, bring a lunch, and your tablet / iPad if you have one, plus a little bit of imagination to write history just too good to be true!

But in the mean time, here is a little Soundcloud of me talking about the concepts and possibilities of Missing Histories whilst walking in Dunster woods this morning.

This is the Festival Storywalks link where trails from the Gifted and Talented pupils above are posted, and our new Missing Histories will be tethered too.

Enjoy.

Top and Tail Tales

Here is a little audio snippet of Mr Jelley talking about Storywalks which have a beginning and end, but the middle section is perfect for lots of pupils to add their own creations. They are designed to play to the strengths of children's incredible imaginations, but can also include quite factual or more historical type works.

Whilst working with Curry Mallet Primary School on their Magna Carta Storywalk 'The Weaver of Curry Mallet' it was important to keep the children stories grounded. There was a tendency for the tales to be so fantastical that they defied themselves, but once a few sensible rules were set up for the class as a whole they seemed to come back to earth.

There are lots of resources inside the Storywalk engine, all designed to support curriculum focused teaching and learning beyond the classroom walls.

To find out more please visit http://storywalks.info and throw the team a line.

Frome Festival Storywalks

As part of this years Frome Festival, Storywalks has a special family event to make a storywalk in a day. Here are the words from the Rook Lane Trust and Break 3 who are sponsoring the event and making it as close to free for participants as possible.

 Storywalk in a day at Rook Lane Chapel, Frome. 

4th July 2015

As part of Shape Shifting and Story Walking at Rook Lane, help Break 3 create a new walking story to hide in the winding streets of Frome town. Led by artist / technologist Chris Jelley, this workshop will harness your writing in response to particular, peculiar, places in Frome, and geo-locate them in those locations through the power of the Storywalk engine.

Think geo-caching, but words. 

The tale created will be available to the wider public to download and explore through the rest of the Festival week. 

Workshop is based at Rook Lane Chapel but will involve stepping out and exploring Frome. 

Sounds great I am sure you agree, but what will it entail?

Storywalks is a simple concept, just imagine sticking a note it to a tree and then another a little down the lane, followed by a third just round the corner. To read you have to physically be there in the location and walk between those notes. Storywalks does this digitally by pinning words to a virtual map inside the Storywalk Engine, which sounds complicated but it really isn't.

The words can then be read on any smart phone just by opening the story in your phones browser. Once this page is open you then just walk to the location set (here a tree but could be anywhere) and the text will reveal. On the 4th July we hope to pin a story to the streets of Frome, it might be a treasure hunt, or just a reading journey as there are lots of options and possibilities with Storywalks, perhaps too many!

Once complete the walk will be open and available for all to view along with other tales created by Gifted and Talented pupils from Frome schools.

This is the page where all the stories will sit, just open in your phone and then click on a story and follow the instructions. But be patient, save the web address for later when we can publish the stories for all to read and explore.

http://frome.storywalks.info

So don't delay, book in your family now and snatch up one of the exclusive Storywalks seats.

If you can then please bring your iPad as we'll need all the tech we can get, and don't forget to pack a lunch to keep those imagination cells in top order.

Tickets are £5 per family from the Frome Festival Box Office 01373 455420

Also here is a little link to Grass Roots Liturature who have a short window for applying for grants under £500, enough to bring some Storywalks shenanigans your way perhaps!!