Storytelling: Water Slide

By Hanna Grewe

When I was first told that we needed to tell a story as part of this new unit, I immediately thought back to a time where a single event changed my life. The summer of sixth grade, my family and I took a trip to a nearby water park and in the distance, in the back of the park, was a huge water slide that I ended up feeling pressured into going on. After going on the ride, I immediately developed a fear of falling due to the experience going on this one water slide. This was the one story that I realized I wanted to tell. 
I ended up wanting to share this experience for my storytelling unit because this one event taught me a lot about myself and my limits. I thought that this story was going to be easy to tell because it was a simple storyline that included a huge impact. This was why I immediately knew that I wanted to recall this story as part of this unit. 
My experience actually telling this story was everything but expected. After watching videos of people telling their stories at huge conventions, I guess it’s an understatement to say that they made it look easy. I personally thought that this story was going to be super easy to tell and that I could manage to tell it comfortably. But on the contrary, I found it was difficult being able to think of what to say on the spot and making my story interesting enough while having a beginning, middle, and end structure. Although, while my experience telling a story wasn’t completely positive, I still thought that this unit helped a lot when it came to strengthening our class community. We got to have the inside scoop on people’s lives, experiences and stories that made us look at each other in a whole new light.