Ember App - Initial State
I think you can pass in the controller to the "stories" render function and use the model hook :

App.IndexRoute

App.IndexRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
    renderTemplate: function(){
        this.render();
        this.render('stories', {controller: App.StoriesController}); 
    }
});


App.StoriesController

App.StoriesController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
    model : function() {
        return App.Story.find();
    }
});