Sherry is accepting bookings now
through 2011
Master storyteller Sherry Norfolk
is an internationally acclaimed performer, consultant, teaching artist,
workshop leader, and keynote speaker.
NEWS:
Sherry has just
been named "2010 Outstanding Artist in Residence" by
the Tennessee Arts Commission, Value Plus Schools. Sherry
is co-author of the award-winning Literacy Development
in the Storytelling Classroom. Order
your copy here
Listen to Sherry's Podcast, Storytelling
in Schools, on the Art of Storytelling website.
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.
She is past Chair of the Board and President of the National
Storytelling Network.
Sherry Norfolk combines her belief in the power of story with an inborn talent for teaching. Her infectious enthusiasm and dynamic energy revitalize audiences and empower participants in her classes.
Sherry has recently performed at schools, libraries, festivals and conferences in the Singapore International Storytelling Festival & Congress, the Singapore American School, the Hong Kong International School, the Surabaya International School, the TalkStory Conference in Waikiki, Hawaii, and the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee. 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 Ghanaian folk tales as well as the award-winning Billy Brown and the Belly Button Beastie. Sherry is the co-author of Literacy Development in the Storytelling Classroom (Libraries Unlimited 2009), a 2009 Storytelling
World Resource Award Winner, and The Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum (Libraries Unlimited, 2006), a 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:
 Sherry's
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.
Hire
a Teaching Artist
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/Teaching
Artist, I have taught over 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 - Select
format: pdf or shockwave
flash (no plug-in needed).
More praise from Robert Kikuchi-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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