Growing up in the Appalachian tradition of storytelling, I tell stories in my natural dialect. I perform folktales, ghost 'haint' tales, personal stories and student stories gleaned from my writing workshops.  

In grades 3 - 12 the focus is on students writing a fictional story modeled after a Jack Tale (a folktale.  Pre-writing activities include development of characters, plot and story development. K- 2 focus is on the development of oral skills and sequencing where students create a Jack Tale picture book using simple shapes to draw characters.

Classroom activities focus on developing performance and technical elements as well as individual creativity to present skits, plays or an oral story.