Gather Round and
Create a
Progressive Story
with the Kids in Your Life
Create a
Progressive Story
with the Kids in Your Life
by Mary Brigid Barrett
Progressive stories have been around
as long as men, women, and children have been able to talk. Imagine an ancient
tribe of people sharing experiences at the end of a long day of fishing, each
person’s catch growing bigger, each account of an individual’s struggle to catch
that fish growing more dramatic, one story building on the other around the
campfire as stars erupt in the night sky. Imagine an eye witness sharing the
details of an animal attack of his or her friend, and that story expanding,
becoming more exaggerated as it is spread throughout the village. Imagine the
neighborhood gossips cackling over the long line of suitors courting the rich
widow in town, the intimate details growing in inverse proportion to the actual
knowledge of the gossips. The foundations of progressive stories and
progressive story games are well rooted in the behavior of imperfect human
beings and in the vast panoply of human emotions— pride false and true; jealousy
and envy; love and passion; anger; and the always present need to laugh, to find
escape, entertainment, and objectivity in humor.
The major element that distinguishes
progressive stories and progressive story games is that progressive stories and
games are group activities. One person begins the game or story and it is taken
up and/or added to by the next person in the group. This most simple version can
be played in an oral story tradition or it can take a written form, as in The Exquisite Corpse Adventure national reading and writing initiative created by The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
The basic game can be changed by
limiting the story to a certain theme or genre—ghost or horror stories, wacky
humorous adventures, fairy tale and fantasy, detective and mystery “who
dunnits,” murder mysteries, etc. Contemporary progressive story games for
children also include the game of “Telephone” and a menu of alphabet games such
as “I’m Going on Picnic” and “A My Name is Alice and I come from
Alabama.”
A simple visual version of the game is
to take a piece of paper and fold it width-wise into five equal sections. Only
one section of the five should be seen at any given time. The first player
draws the head of a person or animal, then folds the paper so that only the next
section down is visible and the section with the head drawing is hidden within
the folds. The next player draws the neck and shoulders; the next draws the
torso; next the hips and upper legs, and finally the last player draws the lower
legs and feet, all without viewing the drawings done previously. The
climax of the game, at the end, is when the paper is unfolded in front of game
participants revealing all parts of the group drawing as a composite “Exquisite
Corpse!”
The most up-to-date versions of
progressive story games take place on the Internet, as we have done with The
Exquisite Corpse Adventure. But we encourage you to play any of the versions
of this game with the young people in your life, live and in person. Activities
and time spent together take on deeper meaning when your child or teen looks
into another human face, not an electronic screen. Your kids need the warmth of
human touch, they need to hear your voice, and they need to be able to remember
how you smell— the fragrance of your shampoo, aftershave, or perfume, or the
scent of grass on your skin after a day hiking in the woods. Plastics and
electronics are not the stuff of memories.
For more ideas and instructions for writing progressive stories, visit the NCBLA's Exquisite Corpse Adventure Education Resource Center.
