100 days of Narration

Narration means sharing one's ideas and experiences. Narration means retelling what we have learned. Narration is an important capacity and a foundation for thinking, learning, and communication. I narrate in different ways throughout the day. Our narration practices are based on the Theater Arts for Holistic development approach(TAHD). While we use many other tools, theater arts tools are a very important part of our daily narration.

As a neurodivergent adult, my journey to narration has been different from neurotypical children and adults. I have experienced many challenges along the way. However, there are also a wide range of tools available today for supporting narration. My journey to narration has involved discovering and using a variety of tools.

I am sharing my experiences so others can discover and use tools that work for them! A brief description of my narration activities if given below. Then, I am sharing my 100-Day narration project. During this project, we will be creating and sharing resources on narration. I hope parents will try these ideas and tools and do their own 100-Day project.

Narration Activities

My daily narration activities are shown below. I am developing and refining these activities furing these 100-Day project.

Smile Brightly and Dance

My Bharatanatyam adavus, hand gestures, and pieces have music and story narrations with them.

Story of the Month

The story of the month is an important narration project. For this project, I repeat many times until I can narrate this story smoothly. Follow the link below to see my earlier narrations.

Ananth's Adventures - Story of the Month Playlist

Writing

I have started writing one story narration daily in OneNote. I have been using OneNote since 2014. It organizes information in sections and pages making it easy to keep track of information.

Daily BBA review

I am going to review my BBA topics in Diigo. Even though I can use OneNote for this, Diigo is an outliner, it helps me type the bullet points.

Narration on the walk

Whenever I go with my mother, I narrate the story. We also discuss BBA topics on the walk.

Build and Talk

I build visual maps of concepts and narrate from these maps.

Days 1-7 of 100 Days of Narration

Becoming LIFESMART with Narration

This section includes videos, activities, and other resources for days 1-7 100-Days of Narration project.

Resources (videos and activities) will be presented on Days 1 and 2. Days 3 - 7 will explore the impact of such activities on LIFESMART outcomes.

Narration enhances all four LIFE components. Narration is a tool for daily Learning (L). Narration with different tools makes learning Interesting (I). Narration with different tools can enrich interactions with Family (F) members. Finally, narration can be used to Engage (E) the community.

Create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-framed) projects to practice narration and to enhance the LIFE outcomes.

Day 1: Tree Song - Narration using Movement and Music

Watch the video above. List three ideas for practicing narration with your child. This video is a lesson by Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh, Ramana Maharshi Center for Learning. The tree song can be used to introduce parts of the trees to children.

Day 2: Trees - Narration using Thinkblocks

Watch the video above. List three ideas for practicing narration with your child. In this video, my mother and I talked about trees with Thinkblocks. We describe Thinkblocks and introduce the DSRP (Distinctions, Systems, Relations, and Perspectives) method by Cabraera research lab.

Day 3: L: Learning Daily (L)

Narration is an important tool for learning. I have used movement and visual tools such as Thinkblocks since 2007. Both types of tools increase learning and are fun to use.

How do you use narration with different tools to enhance daily learning?

Day 4: I: Interests

I am very interested in dance and music. So learning with movement and music is more fun. I also found Thinkblocks more fun than just reading from a book.

Day 5: F: Family interactions

I enjoy doing the tree song and other dances with my nephew. My nephew is one and a half years old. He does not understand the whole song. But he loves it when I jump around and even tries to copy some movements. When I was young, I used to learn with movement and visual tools with my mother.

Day 6: E: Engagement with Community

I have fun learning these songs for my nephew from my teacher. Now I can also share it with the LIFESMART community. My mother and I are also creating video lessons on Thinkblocks and other tools.

Day 7: SMART Projects

To practice the tools, create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-framed) projects. For example, I create a story of the month video every month. Now, I have started doing more SMART projects to practice my skills and to engage the community.

Discovering and Using Narration Tools - 2006 - 2023

I am listing different tools that I have discovered and used for narration over the years. I will create resources explaining why I use each tool and some key features of the tools in the future.

The first five tools are the Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) tools. While these are familiar tools, I am learning theater arts from trained TAHD faciliators including Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh, Ms. Usha Sankaran, and Dr. Vaishnavi Poorna. Thus, I am learning skills for using these tools in narration.

1. Movement and Dance

I have been using movement and dance as tools for narration for many years. Now, because of my Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) based dance classes, I am learning more about the use of these tools.

2. Music and Rhythm

Music and rhythm are an important part of every dance lesson. I have been combining music and movement with oral storytelling in my narration videos.

3. Storytelling

I have been focusing on storytelling extensively. I am focusing on storytelling techniques and practice storytelling daily.

4. Drama

Drama has been a part of our narration toolkit for many years. We are not focusing more on storytelling now though I continue to participate in drama experiences.

5. Arts and Crafts

I am not using arts and crafts much now. I will explore it in the future.

6. Thinkblocks

Thinkblocks is a set of nested blocks that I used for visual modeling and storytelling when I was young.

7. Folded Circles

I used to fold circles using an approach called wholemovement. I use folded circles for visual modeling of ideas.

8. Notebooks

I use notebooks for taking notes, but also for practicing.

9. Index Cards

I use index cards for tracking and memorizing information.

10. Post-its

I use post-its in my planners.

11. Plectica

I use Plectica for BBA review. Plectica is a visual modeling tool that I use for BBA review.

12. OneNote

WI use Diigo for memorizing and practicing. I write about Ramana Maharshi, Ramayana, and other stories in OneNote.

13. Diigo

I use Diigo for BBA review.

14. Kumu

I am using Kumu for Visual storytelling.

15. YouTube

Each month, I narrate Ramana Maharshi stories. I then record the stories and post them in YouTube. I also post dance videos.

16. Canva

I use Canva for posters and visual storytelling.

17. Wakelet

Wakelet is a simple tool for compiling and curating a variety of resources.

18. Miro

Miro is another visual modeling tool. My coding teacher uses Miro for sharing information for my web development projects.

19. Obsidian

Obsidian is a note-taking tool to help users organize and structure their thoughts and knowledge in a flexible way. I can create notes and graphs to visualize how different items are related.

20. Visual Studio Code

I use Visual Studio Code to build my website. My website is also going to be an important part of my narration practice and hence I have included Visual Studio Code in my list of narration tools.

100 days of Reading

The 100 Days of Narration project supports all my other projects. For example, narration is a part of my 100 days of reading project.

1. Timeless in Time: Sri Ramana Maharshi

One of the books I am reading is by A.R. Natarajan. Last week, I read chapters from section 1. I was reading about Ramana Maharshi's childhood years. I read about how he left home and went to Tiruvannamalai.

2. The Life of Cow Lakshmi

This is a picture book that we bought in Ramanasramam. I narrated a story on Cow Lakshmi as my story of the month for April. I plan to narrate more stories about Cow Lakshmi in the future.

I read the book. We wrote a shorter version of the story for the narration. I learned the hasta (hand gesture song) and movements for the story with my teacher. I am recalling the story daily so I can narrate it smoothly

Follow the link below to see my earlier narrations.

3. After the Rain - Silent Encounters with Sri Ramana Maharshi

This book provides glimpses of Ramana Maharshi and Ashram life. It also provides Ramana's teachings

4. Balagokulam skits

I started reading the story of Prahalada in drama form with Usha akka. The story of Prahalada is my favorite story. So I am reading this story with Usha akka.

5. Ramayana

I also started reading the Ramayana. I read the first few chapter. I am reading the stories from the first few chapters of the book by Sri. Rajalagopalachari this week.