"Sherry Norfolk is the finest teacher of the modern craft of storytelling. Period."
-- Carmen Deedy
Sherry Norfolk possesses an "ebullient style and energetic command of stage,
adding a freshness to time-held folk tales and modern yarns."
[read more]
--Robert Kikucki-Yngojo, Eth-Noh-Tec
Holding a B.S.
in Elementary Education and a Masters in Library Science,
Sherry Norfolk has been a professional storyteller since 1981. She uses folktales
from around the world in a non-didactic way to teach universal
values, elevate understanding and acceptance of other cultures,
and enhance literacy skills. Sherry served as a consultant on
Turner South's "Stories
to Learn By" initiative. Sherry's dedication to and deep interest
in children and family literacy have been recognized with national awards from
the American Library Association, the Association for Library Service for Children,
the National Association of Counties, and the Florida Library Association. Professional
associations find Sherry to be a lively and inspiring keynote speaker.
In the spring of 2008, Sherry was featured
at "The
Schools and The Arts: A Class Act" conference
for Bibb County teachers and teaching artists artists in
Macon, Georgia. Her keynote, "Points of Entry:
the Power of Arts Integration" dealt with the
potential of arts integration to transform whole schools
by reinvigorating teaching in core subjects and inspiring
students to greater joy and achievement in learning. Sherry shared
some of her own "minor miracles," examples
of how arts-integrated instruction transforms teachers and students
alike.
Sherry has performed at schools, libraries, festivals and conferences in Hong
Kong, Anchorage, the Bahamas, Honolulu, Grand Canyon National
Park and hundreds of points in between. She tells stories
with a style that is distinctly her own, full of rhythm,
motion, multiple voices, and opportunities for interactive
participation. Audiences of all ages find joy, humor, and
pathos in her storytelling performances.
Sherry Norfolk is co-author of The
Moral of the Story: Folktales for Character Development, 2nd Ed. (August
House, 2006), with
her husband, Bobby Norfolk. Sherry & Bobby have also
published five
of the popular Anansi Ghanian
folk tales. Sherry is the co-author of The
Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum (Libraries
Unlimited, 2006) >> 2008
Resource Award Winner! << All are great resources for teachers,
librarians and parents.
Sherry Norfolk embodies the meaning
of the term Teaching Artist. She is an artist who
can not only talk the talk but walk the walk. She is on the roster
of several State Arts Councils (links below), a testimony to her
value in the classroom and as a student workshop leader. She also
offers inspiring, energizing staff
development workshops which demonstrate storytelling
as a power tool for educators and an engaging, motivating, curriculum-spanning
activity. Sherry's performances, school programs and workshops
may be booked through Sherry, or through these agencies - some
offer fee support:
 My Philosophy
Storytelling is the art of using words, gestures, facial
expression, and body language to bring a story to life in the listener's
imagination. From the beginning of time, storytelling has been the way
cultures have preserved and celebrated their memories, passed on their
values end belief systems, entertained, instructed and reported. Today,
storytelling continues to invite us all to "Enter the theater of the
mind -- the imagination!"
To sum it up in one word, storytelling represents passion to me -- a
passion to listen to stories, to read stories, to share them with others,
and to teach others to love them and tell them, too! That's what motivates
me to share the art of storytelling through performances, teacher workshops and in- school residencies designed to demonstrate storytelling as a power tool for
educators and an engaging, motivating, curriculum-spanning activity for
children.
All of my residencies and workshops are based on the deep belief that
everyone can successfully tell a story, and that "success" for one child
will and should look different from "success" for another. Each child
comes to the art of storytelling from a different perspective, with different
talents and with different ways of knowing. In my workshops, students
are encouraged to interpret and tell stories from their own unique perspective,
and are helped to recognize and celebrate that uniqueness in themselves
and others.
Story-Educator
With a BS in Elementary Education and an M.L.S. in Library Science,
I have worked professionally with children since 1975. During my teaching
career, I taught preschool through 2nd grade; during my career as a children's
librarian in public libraries, I worked with newborns through senior
high students.
Since becoming a fulltime storyteller/story-educator, I have taught
nearly 100
storytelling and creative writing
residencies for K-12 grade students. I have worked with special populations
such as the Alaska Children's Center, a residential treatment center
for children with severe emotional disabilities, as well as "alternative" schools
for children with behavioral disorders, and inclusive schools with large
populations of children with severe learning disorders. All residencies
are tailored to the meet children at their level, working in cooperation
with the grade-level teachers to develop projects that challenge and
motivate the students while demonstrating viable classroom strategies
for staff development. Most residencies include creative
writing as well as storytelling; all are designed to teach students storytelling
techniques which build important language and communication skills, increase
poise and enhance self-esteem. Each participant ultimately writes and/or
prepares and performs a story in a "concert setting."
Read & print Sherry's full resume HERE.
More praise from Robert Kikucki-Yngojo, Eth-Noh-Tec:
"Sherry's stage presence is strong, clear and direct. She
enters the stage and immediately there is a sparkle that connects to
the audience. She projects a warmth and rapport that translates in both
an intimate story swap setting or before a large audience. AND...that
VOICE! I don't know where it comes from but perhaps there lives in her chords a pantheon
of BOTH gods and goddesses! I hear a hidden musician in there as well
for Sherry imbues musicality in a telling for folk tales. Her use of
tones, timbres, and rhythms in her telling breathe life into her style
yet never draw away from the service of the story. Her repertoire, developed
over the decades she has been telling, is expansive. Her strength is
folktales from around the world trend with a rich gravity of genres:
cautionary, pourquoi, adventure, trickster, ghost/scary, 'Haunted
Hearts': love-and-loss or love achieved, freedom stories (underground
railroad and related stories)...and, as she quotes conjovially, 'just
plain fun!'."
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