Telling Tall Tales:
Tall Tales are great fun because it is the only chance we get to tell a lie and not get into trouble. However, as a teller, tall tales present an interesting challenge because your task is to get the audience to at least somewhat believe your lie.
The first suggestion is establish distance. Create a character, an alter ego, who was really there. You can do this my donning a hat or a costume piece. As you choose this fictional character let the Tall Tale guide you. Create a character that was there to witness the events as they happened. In a Storm Along story, you might choose to become an old salt or maybe a wise old sea captain. The storyteller Odds Bodkin “channels” an old timer who claims to be Paul Bunyan’s cook. It works wonderfully. Such a fictional character allows free range with exaggeration.
Another tip: make it believable. Start with factual events and bits of history and work to things that are wild and made up. You might start with the building of the Erie Canal for Mike Fink, for example. The art of the Tall Tale is in moving smoothly from the truth to the made up. Another way of making the Tall Tale believable is to end with things as they are now and explain how they got that way. We all know there is a Grand Canyon. So if our tale ends with the creation of the Grand Canyon, the audience thinks it must be true. After all, where did the Grand Canyon come from if Pecos bill didn’t create it?
The Pay Off Is in the Details: Have fun with scale and size. Try to get your listeners to imagine what being incredibly large must be like.
A Chance for Audience Participation: Every Tall tale includes the “So..” Things are always so (add the adjective) that (add the result). The baby was so large that there were no diapers large enough for her. Therefore, why not use “so” as an audience participation bit? Tell your audience that whenever you say something is “So ______________“ (When I am teaching this to children I just make some sort of gesture to indicate a word is supposed to go in the blank) then the audience is supposed to say, “How __________.” And then I give a second gesture to them. They usually get it but just to make sure I then say, “For example, If I say something is so big, you say, ‘How big?’” In any given Tall Tale I use this bit of participation I use this again and again.
Activity: Creating a “So-ing Box”
Create slips of paper with the following phrase
The _____________ was so _______________ that __________________ _.
Explain that in the first blank they are to put a character, in the second blank an adjective, and in the third what happens.
The (Character) was so (Add an Adjective) that (What Happens)
For Example: The giant was so tall that he could see my house all the way from The Enchanted Forest.
Or He was so light that he carried bricks in his pockets so that he wouldn’t blow away.
Put out slips of paper and challenge your readers to come up with something clever. The next time you are sharing, you might read a few.
Variation for older students:
The _________________ was so __________________ _____ that __________________ __________________
The (Character) was so (Adjective) that (Preposition: when, if, whenever, unless) (He, she or it) (Verb) (what happens?)
Example: The child was so beautiful that when he smiled everyone fainted.
Activity:
Mapping Tall Tales: Further along in this guide you will see a technique for creating maps based on stories. Tall Tales lead to most interesting maps.
Activity: Math and Measurements: How big is Paul Bunyan’s Foot?
•    Establish a height for Paul Bunyan. If it is not mentioned in the source material, you might choose 100’.
•    Have a child measure his or her height. •    Have the same child measure the length of his or her foot. •    Now do the math: For example, I am six feet tall. My foot is one foot long. Paul
Bunyan is 100 feet tall. Therefore, how long is his foot?
Working it out. Have the child divide their height by the length of their foot. Take that number and divide it into Paul’s height. Now dive
Participant’s height (6’ or 72” divided by foot length 1’ of 12 “ equals 6 Height of Paul Bunyan (100 feet) divided by 6 equals 15 5/6 feet.
The same can be done with all sorts of variables: Food: Two Cookies per day.
Participant’s height (6’ or 72” divided by cookie consumption: 2 cookies per day equals 3. Height of Paul Bunyan (100 feet) divided by 3 equals 33 1/3 cookies per day.
You can also estimate stride, length of fingers, circumference of head, etc.
A Permanent Record: You might choose to tape out Paul’s footprint on your floor as a permanent record of your research.
Activity: A Mini Field Trip – Inside Paul Bunyan: If you have access to a tall building (100’or so), estimate which floor would correspond
with the height of Paul’s eyes. Take the children up to have a look. Have them bring along journals. What would life be like if you were always up that high? What would you see? What might you miss?.
Activity for Telling Scary Stories: It doesn’t take much to make a story scary just limit the light. That’s what makes it scary. It’s what we can’t see that scares us. No, I don’t mean turn off the lights just limit the light in your story. Make sure your tale takes place after sundown. Introduce flickering candle instead of bright lights. Add in fog, and shadows, and cob webs – anything that will take down the amount of light in the story and will immediately become more frightening.
Having trouble With Fidgeting? Add humor. Children fill up with tension very quickly. Make them laugh and they shake out and it makes it easier to listen again. In a way laughter is a positive form of fidgeting.