1. Take
your audience into consideration when choosing a book. Try to find
a book that has potential connections to the students, no necessarily
obvious ones.
2. Empower your listeners with invitations to become the main character.
3. While reading the story, point out connections between the events
in the story and events and settings familiar to your listeners.
4. Be prepared to put yourself in the listener's place and model the
process of sharing personal anecdotes that relate to the story.
5. Ask for free association to the themes of the book, offering ideas
of your own. This may include singing a song that you are reminded of,
or talking about a TV show or a meal that the family shares.
6. Resist the temptation to end the story in one sitting. Send listeners
home with a question that, for homework, they must return answered. Suggest
that they ask their parents for a story ending that might be based on
family history. Tell the students to make up an ending at home and bring
it back to share with the group.
