Our day on Tuesday

Last Tuesday we did some fun exercises that helped us act. Our teacher made us do a pattern with a tennis ball and remember it. Then he added another ball to our game with a different pattern. It was hard, but it was fun trying. Then he set three balls on the floor. He told us that wen we stepped near the first ball we would act like we were stepping in mud. The next ball was cement, and the third ball was through toilet paper. So we walked through the balls until we reached first ball. That's when the acting began. We slowly got to the finish, when our teacher told us to do three more. The first was walking through marshmallows. The second ball was walking through jello, then walking through ice cream. So again we started walking normally until we reached the first ball. When we once again ended up at the other side he gave us more things to act up on with the balls. The first was being mad. The second was being depressed, then the last was falling in love. Once again we made it slowly across the room, where we got another set. Being crazy, being happy, and being lazy. Once we made it through, our teacher told us to create a story using all the emotions we just did. After that it was time to go home, so we packed our bags and left the building. We had so much fun!
Olivia Seoane

Remembered Stories

Anne's Blog!

Hey Everybody!
One of our elders, Anne Warburton has a blog!
It is called pawsdelux; please check it out.
THANKS.
click here:
link

The Ages Takes Off

After a week of theater games and interview exercises the students from the Hope School District were ready to meet their elders. We were honored to begin the process with two amazing women- Bettina Barrett (a former nurse originally from Denmark) and Anne Warburton (a retired children's librarian who grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.)



The students prepared several questions which we put into two categories: full stop questions and springboard questions. Their full stop questions were designed to elicit basic information like age, marital status, number of children or grandchildren etc. These are questions that can be answered either with a "yes" or "no" or with a short statement. Their springboard questions are designed to spark a memory or feeling. They are open ended and prime the interviewee to tell a full fledged story. "Did you ever do something you were ashamed of?" asked one student. "What was it like sailing across the ocean knowing you were moving to America?" another student asked.

Even in the presence of the video camera and lights the students and the women they interviewed were instantly comfortable with one another. Even though they'd just met, they seemed like family- like a curious group of grandchildren surrounding their grandmother and demanding stories. Watching the young and old faces light up in each other's presence was very inspiring.

The Ages

Hello and welcome to the BOXTALES "The Ages" blog. As you may have read above we are in the first phase of our process "the interviews". To the left is a picture of Bill Niven our first interviewee. He is 90 years old and lives here in Santa Barbara. A WWII veteran and a who went from Private 1st Class to a Captain in a quite a remarkable story. Perhaps that will be one of the stories we use to build our theatre piece who knows. So far it has been a very touching and enriching journey through the lives of these elders. I am so fortunate to hear the stories of these members of our community and have already learned much from the stories they have shared. But enough about what I have learned. Let's hear from the students who have been expertly conducting the interviews for the last 4 weeks. Here is some of the things that they written about the elders and the interview process.













I've learned that old people, like Evelyn, can have a sense of humor and that every person has a story. Bill told us a great story when he was a private in the army. He raised his hand when somebody asked him if anybody knew how to do office work and because of that he got a great job in the war and later went on to be a Captain.

Kyla Zavala



The Ages program has inspired me to not lay around and let other people answer or ask questions. So now I am always speaking up and talking because its fun to interview people and learn about their lives

Jackson Eddy

Angie said you should eat real healthy because some people are getting diabetic. Bill said he was on the ground shooting airplanes. It was awesome because I have never seen that before. I never heard someone talk about it.

Miranda Gonzalez

After hearing Angie Hyde speak to us and said how she felt about eating right I learned that I should and I will try to eat more real food. I also need to eat healthier food and how growing gardens saves food. Raising your hand can help impact on you because it gets you into many things your good at and that gets you even better at something else and you can be head or leader of what you are doing. Also, don't join the war because the war is bad to even start.

Shelby Smith



I learned that raising your hand when someone asks if you can do something, raise your hand. In Bill's story, when he joined the army and started out as a private Bill raised his hand when the officer asked if anyone could do office work and he could so he raised his hand and didn't have to fight anymore. Bill later became a Captain.

Lindsey Depledge