[Capdist-announce] CORRECTION! Please Use this Press Release. My Apologies

[Lauren Letellier]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE





Back for its fourth year, *Real People Real Stories Taconic Hills Edition*,
which features 4th 5th, and 6th grade students from Taconic Hills
Elementary School, will take the stage at Ancram Opera House on Saturday,
Nov. 4 at 2PM. This community event is free and open to the public.



In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic’s first year, Ancram Opera House
director Paul Ricciardi began conducting storytelling workshops for 5th and
6th graders at Taconic Hills Elementary School. The project supports the
school's literacy and writing pedagogies by utilizing live storytelling as
a step towards composing personal narratives.



Because of the program's popularity, the workshops have been expanded to
include 4th graders and now a team of AOH teaching artists leads more than
300 Taconic Hills students in the techniques of storytelling. Using the
same methods developed for *Real People Real Stories*, AOH’s popular adult
storytelling event, students learn to identify the key components of a good
story, how to tell it, and how to write about it.



The storytelling program has become an ongoing component of the middle
school writing curriculum. By participating in the program in grade 4, and
then repeating it in grades 5 and 6, students can concretize valuable
writing skills and enter junior high school as well-prepared writers.



The storytelling program at Taconic Hills has been praised by parents,
teachers, staff, and, perhaps most important, the majority of students, who
report a newfound interest in telling and writing personal narrative.



*Real People Real Stories Taconic Hills Edition *is made possible by the
generous sponsorship of Stewart’s Shops, Berkshire Bank, and the Berkshire
Taconic Community Foundation Fund for Columbia County.



Ancram Opera House is an award-winning theater located in New York's Hudson
Valley. Housed in an historic Grange Hall, AOH has since 2016 presented
groundbreaking theater and musical performances by nationally recognized
theater artists. AOH receives significant annual support from the New York
State Council on the Arts and in 2023 was awarded a generous grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts. For more information visit

www.ancramoperahouse.org.




   - Real People Real Stories Taconic Hills Edition
   - Saturday, Nov. 4, 2pm
   - Ancram Opera House, *1330 County Route 7, Ancram, NY, 12502*
   - Free and open to the public
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