On this page you can get a little practice noticing what happens when people share stories (in your community or organization or just in general), then take some notes to capture what you noticed.
On this page you can get a little practice noticing what happens when people share stories (in your community or organization or just in general), then take some notes to capture what you noticed.
Find a few people who don't mind if you take notes or make a recording as you engage in a conversation. Sprinkle a few story-eliciting questions around and see what happens. Later, review your notes. The questions on this page will help you think about what you observed.
The information on this page will appear in the project report. Other than that, this page has no effect on any other page of NarraFirma.
When you aim to help people share stories, it's a good idea to spend some time paying attention to how they share stories already. If you've never done this before, it's helpful to watch anybody share stories — just to get more familiar with the flow of it. If you already have a pretty good feeling for how this works in general, you might want to get a better feel for how story sharing plays out in the community or organization you want to focus on.
Here's a test: pretend you listened to a story-sharing conversation in your project's community or organization. Then look over the questions on this page. Do you think you could answer the questions without having actually listened to such a conversation? If so, you can probably skip this activity. If not, you might want to get out there and listen to a conversation or two. It will create a better foundation for your story listening and facilitation later on in the project.
That depends on you and on the people you are observing. Taking notes while keeping up with a conversation can be difficult. On the other hand, people usually mind note-taking less than recording. On the third hand, you can hear things in a recording that you didn't notice at the time of the conversation. If you can, try it both ways and see what works better for you and your project.
Try listening to a second conversation. Some groups don't share a lot of stories, and you may have to spread a wider net to pick up on story sharing. Another option is to be a bit more explicit in your attempts to get story sharing started. Ask people to help you out in doing some background research for your project.