Technology for the Likes of Shakespeare and Poe

Digital stories are grounded in the seven effective storytelling elements introduced by Joe Lambert and the Center for Digital Storytelling (2002): 1) Point of View 2) Emotional Content 3) Dramatic Question 4) Soundtrack 5) Gift of Your Voice 6)Economy and 7) Pacing. Scripts for digital stories adhere to many of the established traits of the personal narrative genre:
• focuses on a single incident in the writer's life
• has a clear purpose, the significance of which is clear to the reader
• is written in first person
• has many relevant sensory details
• includes the author's feelings and thoughts
• often includes dialogue
An additional property of digital stories is a maximum length of three to four minutes.
Although intended to be autobiographical, digital stories aim to capture defining moments as opposed to encompassing one’s entire life story. Students creating digital stories for the first time are also limited to using still images. Video is introduced as students become more familiar with effective storytelling. Students will integrate oral storytelling traditions; provide practice in visually mapping basic story elements such as beginning, middle, and end; use a variety of story media to help students identify the conflict or point of a story; employ alternatives to the traditional composition approach to writing such as the photo essay; establish the context and purpose for story writing; and recognize the role of identity construction within personal narrative writing.
Visual literacy is defined by the North Central Educational Laboratory (NCREL) as: the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning The basic process of creating a digital story involves only a few steps: 1) write a two to three minute first person story 2) collect images to accompany the story 3) import images into the computer 4) record the voice over and 5) align images with script. Within these five steps are a vast array of skills and concepts that most students meet for the first time. Many have never taken a photograph, recorded their own voice, or thought about how music and text can influence how a view interprets something on a screen. With effective teaching strategies, students will create engaging and satisfying stories that strive to apply the following definition of story: a story needs to contain certain essential elements: 1) a beginning with a “call to adventure” (Campbell) 2) conflict 3) transformation of central character by end of story 4) transfer that allows reader to transform and learn new things along with central character 5) an end or closure, not necessarily a happy ending a digital storytelling project should follow five stages: 1) Planning/Logistics 2) Script Writing 3) Teaching Digital Story Elements 4) Managing the Technology and 5) Assessment. I have used these five stages to frame my analysis of approaches to digital storytelling. Within the five stages, I will address the following issues challenging digital storytelling in education: • emphasizing tool literacy over story literacy • adapting traditional composition methods for writing a concise narrative enhanced with moving images, text and audio • relying on deconstruction of a model digital story to teach the seven
elements of an effective digital story • absence of visual and media literacy instruction in school curricula. The digital storytelling community has accepted most of the following seven elements of an effective digital story put forth by Atchely, Lambert and Mullen:
1. Point of View
2. Dramatic Question
3. Emotional Content
4. Gift of Your Voice
5. Power of Soundtrack
6. Economy
7. Pacing
Teaching students these skills and concepts then honestly assessing their completed digital stories presents several challenging issues. These issues can be divided into two categories: 1) subjective assessment and 2) insufficient attention paid to determining what is developmentally appropriate to expect of students' personal narrative and media skills. The five stages of a typical digital storytelling project are used to illustrate the issues raised by attempting to teach and assess a digital story that corresponds to the seven elements. Digital storytelling is attractive to students because they get to drive the learning. Story coaching supports the personal risk-taking that accompanies this relatively new driving experience for students.
1. Listen to the teller (suspending judgment)
2. Offer honest appreciations (avoid saying “It was good when…”)
3. Provide suggestions if prompted (this is not at odds with teaching responsibilities)
4. Provide opportunity for teller to ask questions or request help
Students should not be limited to the traditional composition model when it comes to writing their scripts. Within every class exists a wide range of narrative skills, intellectual self-awareness, and learning styles. I will integrate peer feedback, a form of story coaching.
1. Get a story idea
2. Create a story map
3. Pitch it to your teacher and peers
4. Create a storyboard
5. Scripting/Writing
6. Review by peers, teacher
7. Production/post-production – this is when students get to the computer!
8. Performance (sharing with audience)
9. Assessment/Improvement
In each of their stories I will look for two things: 1) clear evidence of the significance of the place to the student and 2) the application of most of the seven elements of an effective digital story that I had modeled for them. These two areas encompass a broad range of abilities and assume that students have already attained what Piaget referred to as the formal operational stage of child development. The status of a student’s personal and social development has a large impact on creating a digital story.
The ability to self-identify is a large part of personal narrative writing. Rubrics used to assess student-produced digital stories maybe looking for this, but do not make self-identification an explicit criteria. After all, you cannot force a student to self-identify.
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