Reading Responses: Telling True Stories

Pg 3: Stories Matter by Jaqui Banaszynski

Banaszynski began with a story about her journey to Africa in 1985 to report the Ethiopia famine for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She lived the feeling and struggle of these people in search of food and water and transfered that feeling to her readers using specific, very vivid vocabulary words that made it seem like the reader can see what she sees right through her eyes. Banaszynski, the narrator uses this technique of putting herself in the story and makes the reader understand the guilt she felt as she saw these people in agony, asking for help and all she could do is offer a notebook and questions.

I like how she walks her readers right into the action. She uses so much detail that highly compliment the story.

Banaszynski's point about this short story is the importance of storytelling. One night while she listened to the "coughing and vomiting and whimpering and keening," Banaszynski heard beautiful singing. She wondered how could these people sing under their condition. A few days later, she was told by a couple of translaters that they were storytelling. It was a form of a ritual they do at night, which she found really interesting how they "carried their history and culture and law with them." It proves her point of how stories are so powerful, and how they should be told as prayers, as history, as music, and told with one's soul.

I completely agree with Banaszynski, because stories are really meaningful and in order to get the story through the readers', the story have to be cleary written, have accuracy, understanding and context, and be exciting.