Ideas for Storytelling on the Radio

• As part of your oral history project, the literacy group could plan and coordinate a weekly or monthly storytelling session on the radio.
• The group could create written copies of the stories that will be read during each radio show. Distribute the written copies to the stores, post office or other locations where people can pick them up before the show. Families will be able to listen to the story together on the radio, while following the text on the printed copy. Make plenty of copies, so everyone who is interested can have their own copy to follow. This is a great way to strengthen oral and written Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun skills within families in your community.

Planning the Storytelling Radio Show

• Talk to the radio committee to arrange a regular time for the show.
• Group members may want to search for different people who are willing to tell stories weekly or monthly – for the regular show.

or...

• You could use stories from oral history recordings that already exist in your community. These recordings may be available in your library, cultural centre or through CBC.
• In your literacy group, listen to the story first for enjoyment.
• Spend some time discussing the story. Have people heard it before? Does the story have a message? How do they feel about the story?
• Then listen carefully and transcribe the story. Transcribing is hard work, so you could do this as group work, with each group working on transcribing a small part of the story.
• If you are working with people who will tell the story on air, ask them to come to meet with your group first and tell the story so you can record and transcribe it. You can use this recording for the radio show or the storyteller can go to the radio station at the time of the show and tell the story live on air.
• Print the transcriptions in large, clear type. You may want to include illustrations, pictures or graphics. You could create a logo for your radio show and use it on each story, so people in the community will come to recognize the stories and look forward to the show. Another way to help people recognize your stories is to use the same coloured paper each time.
• Distribute copies of the printed story in the community where people can pick them up – stores, school, library, post office, arena.
• Make announcements on the radio several days before the show, so people will know to watch for the printed stories and to listen to the show.
• Members of your group can act as the hosts for the radio show, introducing your program and the storytellers and winding up the show. Perhaps small groups can be responsible for one show each – picking up the storyteller and making her or him comfortable, or getting the recording ready, hosting the show, introducing the program and the storyteller and operating the equipment.