This year, January 27th – February 3rd marks National Storytelling Week. Across the country, people are sharing their favourite stories, as well as encouraging others to have a go at telling their own stories. This got us thinking. After all, who doesn’t love a good tale?
The further into education you get, the more exciting and compelling the stories you hear become. While we’re not denying that Matilda is a wonderfully whimsical tale that will forever have a place in our hearts, there’s just something even more memorable about your first ‘grown-up’ book (for me it was Stephen King’s The Stand that I slyly stole from my Mum’s bookshelf, shhh!). It’s not just books either; think about all the different ways we hear stories over the years. It’s not a particularly original idea, and it’s probably been done a hundred or more times, but that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile doing yearbook pages about favourite stories – imagine reliving them all years later!
Bookworms Unite!
Without going into a history lesson, the roots of storytelling don’t begin with books, but it’s what most people would think of when someone else says ‘what’s your favourite story?’ Ask people what their favourite book they’ve studied during their time at school is, or if you can get away with it, their favourite books from reading in their own time (you might need to be a little careful on appropriate content here of course). Ask your English class what their favourite GCSE book was and if they have a favourite quote – some of the classics have hidden gems of wisdom that you have probably seen already on Pinterest.
Straight Off The Big Screen
How about including a pop culture-inspired quiz? Get people to describe the story of their favourite movie and put the answers on a separate page. It’s a fun way to capture people’s favourite films and could probably provide more than a few laughs while you’re putting it together. Here’s an example “It’s a little bit like Hamlet in the jungle”*. You could also apply the same game to popular TV shows of the moment; though there’s no guarantee you’ll remember what the shows were in a decade’s time.
Write It Yourself
Why not get creative with the yearbook team (or the rest of your year) and make up your own story using people you know as characters? You could do this by taking turns, or if you want to make it really challenging you could tell each person they only get three words. The results are often silly and rarely make sense, so it’s up to you depending on whether you think you would be happy to look back on something nonsensical in the future. We say it’s definitely worth it, even if it’s just for the laughs.
Ready to start your yearbook project? Request a demo account of our online Yearbook Hub and have a play!
*It’s The Lion King. Easy, we know.
