Facing Fear with Narratives

Introduction

Poetry

Art

Storytelling

Summary

References

Additional Parent Resources

Information on Terrorism

After the terrorist attacks, stories of compassion and courage permeated the Internet, emails, television, radio, and print media. Ms. Tea of "Sister Spit," a storytelling troupe from the Bay Area, said, "The great thing about storytelling is that it is participatory. People like hearing about others' lives and experiences." People also need to tell their own stories.

Movies are a form of storytelling. Heroes and heroines can be found in the movies, as well as in books and other print media. In the HBO movie WIT, Emma Thompson plays a cold-hearted, scholarly literature professor who is dying of cancer. As she lay in her deathbed, the only words that soothe her is the story of the Runaway Bunny, a children's picture book, which was the first book that she could read by herself as a child.

Storytelling is cathartic both for adults and children. Here is a sampling of children's books related to the recent disasters: Flight of the Raven by Stephanie S. Tolan (Library Binding - October 2001); A Terrible Thing Happened - A story for children who have witnessed violence or trauma (ages 4-8) by Margaret M. Holmes, et al (Hardcover - February 2000), Trauma by Joy Berry, Maril; The Best Face of All (ages 4-8), by Wilesse A. F. Commissiong. Dr. Beverly Hock, a reading specialist from the San Francisco Bay area, recommends Naomi Shihad Nye's middle grade novel HABIBI, the story of a Palestinian-American girl whose family moves back to her father's homeland. Dr. Hock says, "This book is touching, lyrical and enlightening. Although the protagonist is a girl and there is just a touch of romance, I think it would be accessible to a 9-10-year-old boy. Nye's anthology of Middle Eastern poetry, The Space Between Our Footsteps, is also wonderful and would be great for high school kids."

Although American adults turned first to television as their primary source of information after the attacks, Harris Interactive (October 5, 2001) found that "the percentage of people using the Internet as one of their information sources, if not their primary source, jumped from 64% to 80% in the two weeks since the attacks, overtaking radio (72%) and second only to television, with 98%. The top reasons given for using the Internet as a news and information source were 1) that it provides information users want when they want it (63%), 2) that it delivers more detailed information (43%), 3) that it delivers more up to date information (42%), and 4) that the information is accessible at work (42%)."

Two important subjects that many of us know little about are terrorists' motivations and Middle Eastern culture. Shasti Tharoor, author of Riot (Arcade Books), suggested that to deflect the hatred aimed at the United States (based on fear, anger, and incomprehension), people need to be informed.

View http://www.nytimes.com/learning/terrorism and http://www.mideasti.org. Pacific Bell's educational web site, Blue Web'n, presents three sites with information on the terrorism. For information on how terrorism works, view: http://www.howstuffworks.com/terrorism.htm. For information on how Osama Bin Laden works, view: http://www.howstuffworks.com/bin-laden.htm. Survivor stories and firsthand reports of the terrorist attacks can be found on http://www.worldnewyork.org. Peggy Bulger, the director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, is collecting email stories at http://www.loc.gov/folklife.

Rituals are a form of storytelling that can help people recover from trauma. For the past several weeks, America has grieved for the heroic firefighters and missing people in churches and synagogues, on the street, in neighborhood shrines, on Web sites, and on television. Without formalized mourning rituals, individuals "improvise personal demonstrations of loss and grief". Freshman girls at Redwood High School, in Larkspur, California (2001), designed a "Redwood Spirit Ball," on which they designed a collage depicting aspects of the September 11 tragedy, ranging from factual information to emotional reactions. Samantha Schaberg composed the following poem commemorating the memorial:

To collectively work through their fears, mothers throughout the country are weaving together stories of the recent disaster in quilts. The meaning of fear in our home and work lives was posed in a question by my friend and mentor Fanita English, who survived the Holocaust. She asks, "What stitches do we have to keep repeating meticulously in order to complete a meaningful pattern for the cloth of our lives, whereby the past can be enveloped and still offer something for the future?"

EUREKA is dedicated to providing information that can help people of all ages make a career, college, or job decision. EUREKA wants to hear stories of how we have contributed to children's and adults' career decisions. Every year, EUREKA provides six prizes, ranging from $150 to $600 for individuals and a $150 to $600 discount on a EUREKA subscription to site coordinator consultants. Please view: http://www.eurekanet.org/contest.html for details.