About Swapping Stories
What Is Swapping Stories?
- Swapping Stories is an intergenerational, intercultural story telling exchange.
- Storytellers learn literary structure, acting, listening and speaking skills in separate workshops and then meet to exchange stories.
- Diverse groups become "silent empathetic listeners." After asking clarifying questions, partners validate each other's story by retelling it as if it had happened to them.
- Swapping Stories provides group exchanges and celebrations of participants' oral histories. People learn from each other. In one story swapping session, seniors understood how children learn fairness through games just as they did when they were young; students learned about the Korean War from someone who lived through it.