About
Make Reading, Writing, and Storytelling Come Alive
The Center for Story Weaving was founded to give K-8 students a reason to actually enjoy the reading and writing work they’re asked to do every day. At its core, the program is a shared creative ritual. It begins with storytelling, asking students to share a personal story with the class. This can range from silly to serious and invites a sense of excitement that comes with asking children to share their adventures with each other. With the support of a teacher, the class pauses between each story to harvest key words and phrases and collect them on the white board. That’s when the weaving begins.
Equipped with a stack of language, characters, settings, actions, emotions, and anything else, each student then produces a unique story that remixes and recombines the communal harvest into something completely original. No two stories are alike, and no student is left staring down an empty blank page alone and frustrated.
Equipped with a stack of language, characters, settings, actions, emotions, and anything else, each student then produces a unique story that remixes and recombines the communal harvest into something completely original. No two stories are alike, and no student is left staring down an empty blank page alone and frustrated.
Traditional writing assignments tend to move in one direction, from student to grade; this one moves in every direction at once, with each student’s choices becoming raw material for classmates’ imaginations. The result is a room full of young authors quietly borrowing courage from one another. Because the format flexes by age — younger students working aloud and as a group, older students working more independently with sharper, more personal prompts — a single practice can serve a kindergarten classroom and an eighth-grade one equally well.
What makes the practice hold up session after session isn’t the writing prompt itself — it’s the culture of attention it requires. Every round asks students to really listen to a classmate before it’s their turn to speak, and to offer their own words without worrying whether they’re the “right” ones. That combination doubles as an unusually direct form of social-emotional practice: students build the habit of noticing what they want to say, learn to sit with the urge to interrupt, and grow more comfortable being seen by their peers. None of that requires a separate lesson — it’s simply what happens when reading, writing, and being heard are treated as the same activity.
What makes the practice hold up session after session isn’t the writing prompt itself — it’s the culture of attention it requires. Every round asks students to really listen to a classmate before it’s their turn to speak, and to offer their own words without worrying whether they’re the “right” ones. That combination doubles as an unusually direct form of social-emotional practice: students build the habit of noticing what they want to say, learn to sit with the urge to interrupt, and grow more comfortable being seen by their peers. None of that requires a separate lesson — it’s simply what happens when reading, writing, and being heard are treated as the same activity.
Make Reading, Writing, and Storytelling Come Alive
The Center for Story Weaving was founded to give K-8 students a reason to actually enjoy the reading and writing work they’re asked to do every day. At its core, the program is a shared creative ritual. It begins with storytelling, asking students to share a personal story with the class. This can range from silly to serious and invites a sense of excitement that comes with asking children to share their adventures with each other. With the support of a teacher, the class pauses between each story to harvest key words and phrases and collect them on the white board. That’s when the weaving begins.
Equipped with a stack of language, characters, settings, actions, emotions, and anything else, each student then produces a unique story that remixes and recombines the communal harvest into something completely original. No two stories are alike, and no student is left staring down an empty blank page alone and frustrated.
Traditional writing assignments tend to move in one direction, from student to grade; this one moves in every direction at once, with each student’s choices becoming raw material for classmates’ imaginations. The result is a room full of young authors quietly borrowing courage from one another. Because the format flexes by age — younger students working aloud and as a group, older students working more independently with sharper, more personal prompts — a single practice can serve a kindergarten classroom and an eighth-grade one equally well.
What makes the practice hold up session after session isn’t the writing prompt itself — it’s the culture of attention it requires. Every round asks students to really listen to a classmate before it’s their turn to speak, and to offer their own words without worrying whether they’re the “right” ones. That combination doubles as an unusually direct form of social-emotional practice: students build the habit of noticing what they want to say, learn to sit with the urge to interrupt, and grow more comfortable being seen by their peers. None of that requires a separate lesson — it’s simply what happens when reading, writing, and being heard are treated as the same activity.
Equipped with a stack of language, characters, settings, actions, emotions, and anything else, each student then produces a unique story that remixes and recombines the communal harvest into something completely original. No two stories are alike, and no student is left staring down an empty blank page alone and frustrated.
Traditional writing assignments tend to move in one direction, from student to grade; this one moves in every direction at once, with each student’s choices becoming raw material for classmates’ imaginations. The result is a room full of young authors quietly borrowing courage from one another. Because the format flexes by age — younger students working aloud and as a group, older students working more independently with sharper, more personal prompts — a single practice can serve a kindergarten classroom and an eighth-grade one equally well.
What makes the practice hold up session after session isn’t the writing prompt itself — it’s the culture of attention it requires. Every round asks students to really listen to a classmate before it’s their turn to speak, and to offer their own words without worrying whether they’re the “right” ones. That combination doubles as an unusually direct form of social-emotional practice: students build the habit of noticing what they want to say, learn to sit with the urge to interrupt, and grow more comfortable being seen by their peers. None of that requires a separate lesson — it’s simply what happens when reading, writing, and being heard are treated as the same activity.
About Ben Page
Ben Page is the creator of Story Weaving. Since 2020, he has brought Story Weaving into K-8 classrooms to make reading, writing, and storytelling more engaging, and trained educators around the world to facilitate it — developing it into a full teacher certification course.
Ben is also the founder of Integral Forest Bathing and the author of three books: Healing Trees: A Pocket Guide to Forest Bathing, The Wild Garden, and The World In My Pocket. A Forest Therapy Guide since 2015, he served as Director of Training for the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy from 2017–2020, where he led curriculum and pedagogical design. His retreats and workshops weave together forest bathing, Story Weaving, and circle work into experiences that help people slow down, reconnect with the natural world, and find their way back to one another.
Ben traces his lineage of circle work and nature connection through the tutelage of Jack Zimmerman. His master’s thesis, An Exploration in Living Council, examines how openhearted listening can open the door to interbeing — and how that quality of presence can serve as a foundation for anti-bias education and peacebuilding in community.
His work has been featured in Women’s Health, USA Today, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, and WebMD. Ben is also a co-founder of The Open School, Southern California’s only free democratic school, grounded in the belief that children deserve dignity and personal autonomy as fundamental human rights. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Carleton College and an M.A. in Human Development and Social Change from Pacific Oaks College.
Ben is also the founder of Integral Forest Bathing and the author of three books: Healing Trees: A Pocket Guide to Forest Bathing, The Wild Garden, and The World In My Pocket. A Forest Therapy Guide since 2015, he served as Director of Training for the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy from 2017–2020, where he led curriculum and pedagogical design. His retreats and workshops weave together forest bathing, Story Weaving, and circle work into experiences that help people slow down, reconnect with the natural world, and find their way back to one another.
Ben traces his lineage of circle work and nature connection through the tutelage of Jack Zimmerman. His master’s thesis, An Exploration in Living Council, examines how openhearted listening can open the door to interbeing — and how that quality of presence can serve as a foundation for anti-bias education and peacebuilding in community.
His work has been featured in Women’s Health, USA Today, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, and WebMD. Ben is also a co-founder of The Open School, Southern California’s only free democratic school, grounded in the belief that children deserve dignity and personal autonomy as fundamental human rights. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Carleton College and an M.A. in Human Development and Social Change from Pacific Oaks College.
