Like all memorized pieces, your ability to effectively coach a student is minimized if their piece isn’t memorized. If a student attends a practice session with most of the piece not memorized, encourage them to spend that practice session memorizing the piece instead.
Are you genuinely entertained while watching the story? Because the main purpose of story is to entertain, the enjoyability of a performance is key.
Try to think of when you were little and listened to your parents, teachers, etc. tell you stories. The same feeling should be replicated when watching a student practice story.
Through both content and performance, is there a clear beginning, middle, and end? Can you tell that there is an exposition, conflict, and a solution? If not, how can the student use storytelling performances to convey this? For example, lots of movement and blocking can be used to show a progression of conflicts/attempts to resolve conflicts.
Pay close attention to the narrator. Whether the student creates a completely different character for the narrator or whether they speak as themselves, the narrator must be captivating because they will be delivering most of the performance.
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