Diving into MOOCs - The Future of Storytelling

I've just started a new MOOC due to my evolving interest into this education form. 

This one is all about storytelling so I was immediately HOOKED. I have homework to do!

Creative Task of the Week - Chapter 1

Please think about which story you have read, seen, listened to, played or experienced has impressed you most in your life. … Which story can you still very well remember? Write down both, the summary of this story (what you remember of the story, not what Wikipedia says.. :) and – on the other hand: – what made it so special to you that you can still remember it.

My re-telling of The Rabbit Trap:

A world of scarcity I cannot imagine

A world of my father

Many tales interwoven and interspersed with his lessons on life

But the rabbit trap, always the rabbit trap

Is the one that I remember.

His father, Louis Napoleon – such a grand name for an impoverished and despicable soul;

A drunk, a wife beater, a broken man,

Who lived his later years under his plaid blanket, bellowing orders to his wife and children;

His leg and mind not allowing him to contribute effectively to their lives;

Only there to abuse.

So my father, age 11, wanted to help his poor mother

He was meant to be at school, but he found the rabbit trap and put it to use

On his way to school, a long way from his home, he would detour

To Parliament House – not for a love or democracy or debate – but for a meal for his mum

If he could steal away early enough he would set the trap before school

On the lawns of Parliament House

He would then sit in the rooms of learning, dreaming only of escape and rabbit stew

Would his family eat tonight?

Sometimes they did and til his death

He remembers the taste of rabbit and his mother’s smile.

What fascinated me most about this story was that it was real and my father could certainly tell a story! His voice rumbled with emotion and he could build suspense nd drama so well that I could see it unfolding before my eyes. My father told me many stories, but this one was my favourite and I heard it many times. I’m not sure why it was my favourite. Maybe it was because we still had the rabbit trap and I could hold it while he told the story. Or maybe it was because my father always changed the tale slightly, making it a new adventure every time. Or was it because he only told the story when he was trying to impart some wisdom like: always be kind to your mother, they have to bear a lot (his mother certainly did). He even told this story to my husband the day he asked my father could we get married. My father wanted my husband to know that his mother had been mistreated by his father and that my husband was not to mistreat me. I guess this makes his stories moralistic, but they never felt that way. They were always an adventure into a mysterious and dangerous past. He hooked me every time he started with “Did I ever tell you about the time…” 

My father was the first great storyteller I knew.