Using Storytelling to Find and Make Meaning

Using Storytelling to Find and Make Meaning: A Personal and Professional Development Workshop Series by Award-Winning National Storyteller Kevin Cordi

Dates/Times: The third Friday of each month (please see workshop topics and schedule below)

Online via Zoom

$45 per workshop, or attend all for $200

Workshop Six is open at no cost to attendees of any of the prior workshops

Workshop I: Living Inside the Book You Are Reading

Friday, January 15, 2021, 1:00-3:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

Learn how to incorporate play and storytelling methods to make the book come alive. Dr. Cordi will share sure-fire playful methods to walk inside the text you are reading or even help you build a new fictional world. Learn how asking inquiry-based questions can lead to more investment into literacy. If you want to jazz a young learner to read and experience more of what they are reading, this workshop is for you!

Workshop II: Playing with Stories: Learn How to Shape Your Writing or Telling of a Story with Play

Friday, February 19, 2021, 1:00-3:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

Do you have a story that you want to explore? Start with a simple idea and allow play to be the central method to explore it in this workshop, where we'll employ playful techniques to help you discover new directions in your story development. Learn what happens when a story is not fixed. Learn what happens when you give yourself permission to play and experience the wonder and development that comes from it. Drawing on his award-winning book, Playing with Stories: Story Crafting for Writers, Teachers, and Other Imaginative Thinkers, author and storyteller Dr. Kevin Cordi creates a playground for you to work with your story.

Workshop III: Do I Have a Story for You?

Friday, March 19, 2021, 12:00-2:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

As Robin Moore states, there is a storyteller in all of us, waiting to be free. We have stories that we need and want to tell. Learn how -- and just as important, why -- you should be telling the stories that are within you and around you. We often have a mindset that keeps us from sharing or even finding these tales. Learn proven practices that will offset this mindset and allow you to discover stories you want to tell or don’t know you need to share.

Workshop IV: Discovering and Using a Narrative Mindset: Rethinking Narrative’s Place in Your Work, School, or Community

Friday, April 16, 2021, 12:00-2:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

As a teller, writer, educator, or community organizer, are you using narrative to its full potential? Although we know humans are “wired for stories” (Cron, 2012), can those wires hang loose and remain idle? In this workshop, we explore how to fire up your thinking and adapt a “narrative mindset” (Cordi, 2019).” We develop a narrative framework to re-see story in our lives and our work. The process draws on Dweck’s (2007) idea of “growth mindset” but focuses and uses narrative lenses in constructing meaning. In this practical online session, you will have the tools to begin using story in new ways, and the outcomes will charge you and re-energize your story readiness. Re-see, revision, and refine you and your work using narrative mindset practices. Your new story awaits.

Workshop V: Reclaiming Your Story: How to Find YOUR STORY

Friday, May 21, 2021, 12:00-2:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

Too often the story that speaks to us is not told. Whether it is from cultural misconceptions or because “you fit the mold”, YOUR STORY is not like everyone else's, and you should be the one telling it. Reclaim your story; it is a story that you deserve to tell. Drawing on his work in social justice and editing Social Action Stories: Impact Tales for the School and Community, as well as his service on the National Advisory Board for Teaching Tolerance, Dr. Kevin Cordi shares how deep listening leads to action and knowing your story.

Workshop VI: Storyville: A Place to Tell Your Story

Friday, June 18, 2021, 12:00-2:00 PM (Hawaii)

3:00-5:00 PM (Pacific) / 5:00-7:00 PM (Central) / 6:00-8:00 PM (Eastern)

Storyteller and author Kevin Cordi invites you to share your story at Storyville. Storyville is a place to tell your stories out loud for a listening audience. Dr. Cordi will emcee and share a tale of his own, then extend an open invite to participants to share the virtual stage. Let us come together in the community that story offers. Your story awaits. This workshop is open at no cost to registered participants from any of Kevin's other workshops in the series.

About the Presenter:

Kevin D. Cordi, Ph.D. holds a Doctorate in “Storytelling and Education” from the Ohio State University. For 11 years, Kevin served as the “first full time high school storytelling teacher in the United States” and has spent over 20 years, as a National Story/Storytelling Consultant. For nine years, he co-directed the Columbus Area Writing Project with the National Writing Project. He is the author of You don’t know Jack - A Storyteller Goes to School, Playing with Stories: Story Crafting for Writers, Teachers, and Other Imaginative Thinkers, and co-author of Raising Voices: Creating Youth Storytelling Groups and Troupes. Currently, he serves as an Assistant Professor of Education and Literacy at Ohio University Lancaster. His work has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Qatar Foundation International, Newsweek, the National Writing Project, and the National Park Service. He has presented in over 40 states as well as England, Japan, Qatar, Canada, Singapore, and Scotland. He has been a gas station attendant, a door-to-door salesman and fallen off a rollercoaster. All of these experiences help him tell better stories. He has coached everyone from correctional officers, business owners, to teens. He believes that story brings us together. He also advocates and supports that story is one of the most powerful ways to make making. You can find out more about his work at www.kevincordi.com.