Transformative Storytelling Tools
Appreciative Evaluation
It is the last class of the semester, and I am trying to get as much done before I bid my students goodbye and wish them a good summer. I want to give them a farewell gift to carry with them as they continue their life journey. So, I let them experiment with appreciative evaluation, a basic and essential tool in the storytelling toolbox. It can be used in many ways; when preparing for a job interview, a pitch, or a presentation. It helps us introduce ourselves in a deep and meaningful manner.
It is also the first tool I teach people who are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder because it helps them say "my post-traumatic stress disorder is not me and it does not define who I am."
These are the basic questions of esteem appreciation:
Who are the women who have grown and inspired you?
What are the qualities and traits of which you are most proud?
What are the most difficult difficulties, challenges, and tests you have faced, and what have you learned about yourself from dealing with them?
What are the values that guide you in your life? Where do you draw strength from?
Seemingly simple questions, and profoundly curious. And time and time again, I discover how we rarely take the time to look at ourselves through appreciative and caring eyes. In fact, we were taught "not to blow our own horn," right?
But appreciative evaluation is not about singing our own praises. It is a generous and curious invitation to look at ourselves not through the lens of our achievements or our social and economic status, but through the raw materials from which we are made. So that the next time we want to tell who we are, we will know how to do it.