abstract: This research features a phenomenological investigation of the interactions between adolescent storytellers and audience members during a live storytelling event. The researcher partnered with an English teacher in an urban Southwest high school and a spoken word poet from a youth nonprofit to produce a storytelling workshop and corresponding story slam event for high school students. Fourteen participants, including seven student storytellers and seven student audience members, participated in extensive follow-up interviews where they described the experience of their respective roles during the event. Utilizing a phenomenological design (Moustakas, 1994; Vagle, 2014) and drawing from reception theory (Bennett, 1997; Hall, 1980) as a framework, the researcher used participant descriptions to compose a textural-structural synthesis collectively describing the phenomenon of interaction, connection, and transaction between storytellers and audience members during the live event. The textural-structural synthesis of participants’ descriptions comprises four major essences of the transactional phenomenon. These include 1) the relational symbiosis of storytellers and audience members, 2) the nature of the story slam as a planned and produced event, 3) the storytellers’ inclusions of specific, personal details which resonated with specific, personal details in audience members’ lives, and 4) the storytellers’ intentional style and content choices which corresponded with reactions from audience members. These findings provide a platform for fostering conditions for interaction, connection, and transaction in curricular and extra-curricular secondary contexts. For a classroom teacher, they may be helpful in creating principles for optimizing interactions between teachers and students in instruction and between students in collaboration. In extra-curricular contexts, these findings provide a platform for consideration of how to hold space for creative performance once spaces for creative expression have been made for youth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018

The Moth Detroit StorySLAM is one of many storytelling events staged in urban bar environments. Unlike the increasingly aged audiences attending the National Storytelling Festival and similar story festivals, the Detroit StorySLAM consistently yields at capacity crowds of college students and young professionals. Participants were informally interviewed during the September, October, and November slams of 2010 and the January 2011 slam. In addition to conducting these interviews, the researcher was a participant observer—throwing her name into the hat and being twice called to the stage. Data are presented as a thick description organized according to Richard Bauman's 6 situational factors of the performance event. Until now questions about the nature and meaning of storytelling have been largely considered from the storyteller's perspective. By redirecting those questions to the listeners, this study reveals the ethos of hundreds of story enthusiasts—an undisputed admiration for the revelation of authentic, individual truths.