Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 18, 1991 TAG: 9102180093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERTA ENGLISH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Students at Penn Forest Elementary School in Roanoke County were tempted to follow her from Roanoke when she spoke.
Susan McMillan's stay at the school was part of a heritage and cultural education project sponsored by the PTA. McMillan hails from Fayetteville, N.C., and travels the Southeast enchanting children with folklore.
McMillan helped teachers at Penn Forest form a unit to teach third-graders to write, present and critique their own stories. "Children gain confidence by learning to speak in front of an audience," said Assistant Principal Deedie Kagey.
"Mrs. Mac" taught students to bring life into their stories with gestures, body language and voice modulation.
"It's boring if you talk in your regular voice," said third-grader Matthew Little. "It's more fun if you use an accent."
"Mrs. Mac" tells stories in Cajun, Appalachian, Irish, Ashanti, British and black dialects. Her humor and expressions appeal her to the students.
"She tells stories with her eyes," said third-grader Whitney Freeman.
McMillan chooses her repertoire from stories she loved as a child and reads a great deal to find new material. Children love "the old stories" the best, like her Appalachian tales of the Woolly Booger, she said.
"I like the funny parts," said fourth-grader Amy Scheuer.
McMillan follows in the footsteps of her grandmother, who also was a story-teller. "My grandmother was a newspaper lady and wife of a Presbyterian minister, so she knew a lot of stories," McMillan said.
Many of "Mrs. Mac's" tales come from her grandmother's travels in the Appalachians. McMillan's grandmother worked for newspapers in Statesville and Blowing Rock, N.C., and would publish many of the old tales she heard from the mountain people.
"If we listened to the same story twice, Nannie would publish it in the newspaper and Grandfather would illustrate it."
McMillan began telling stories herself during childhood. She wanted to be Catholic, so she dressed up as schoolteacher nun and told stories to her doll babies. "I named myself Sister Mary Stewart," McMillan said. "I was very pious."
McMillan didn't get her first "live" audience until age 13 when she started baby-sitting. She practiced her art while baby-sitting throughout college.
"I was very popular," McMillan said. "I was on the faculty baby-sitting list."
McMillan taught elementary school for six years before getting married and having her own children, to whom she told stories "in uterus." She started telling stories professionally after her children bragged about her talent at school.
McMillan visits about 70 schools a year, but she tries not to travel too far from North Carolina because she has two teen-age daughters.
McMillan said the human interaction of storytelling is a nice change from the Nintendos, televisions and computers that young children love. "It's like a warm fuzzy," she said.
She is excited that the art of storytelling is being revived. Teachers at Penn Forest already have planned to make the art a permanent part of their language arts curriculum.
"Anytime a child is given a tool, like storytelling, debate, et cetera, if you give him confidence in himself you're doing him a great deed," she said.
"It's a great talent," said third-grader Bill Hueglin. "Once you get into it, it's hard to stop."
McMillan believes that what endears storytellers to their audiences are the emotions they create and expressions they use. She compares children's fascination with her to how she felt when her grandmother told stories.
McMillan tells stories to many audiences, but she still hasn't performed before the nuns she wanted to join. "Isn't that terrible?" she said. "I genuflected all the time so people would think I was Catholic."
McMillan said storytellers barely make enough money to cover gas, but she loves her job. She hopes she has an impact on the students she meets.
She does.
"One child was extremely shy and didn't mingle at all, now he is a different person," said Sandra Fortner, a third-grade teacher.
by CNB