The one point we are trying to make here is the rationale behind changing the term ‘storytelling’ into a single verb: ‘storying‘. While the author starts out having us believe that story TELLING is exactly that…’telling’ (or writing ) a story. As media has evolved, other forms also have their own ‘language’. This was the brilliance of Marshall McLuhan and why he was so misunderstood and controversial in hi time. No one knew at that time how media and technology would evolve. Take from this reading and extrapolate into the 21st century and tell me how you can correlate what the author is saying and bring it to new media/technology.
Review the Premise for this white paper and post your response to the questions. Again, you are being asked to take a stand on this particular issue:
Prepare a one page ‘white paper’ in which you state your ideas on story and media. This time it is about media, story and language. Does Strate seem to imply that “language” must be in text format or is there room in his arguments for other types of media? On other words do other media have their own ‘language”?
Include you rationale as to the source of your ideas. You may pull from the Media Ecology class, if you have taken it. Regardless, be sure to cite your sources using APA format.
State how you might rephrase the question to reflect your thoughts above
Include this as a separate section of your single, final reflection for this course, adding it to the first discussion starter on story and cognition and learning and your final reflection. This final paper will have three distinct parts.
Submit your final paper in the single drop box set up in Canvas for these three assignments.
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Until recently, if you wanted to create mediated stories you had to learn how to produce them from scratch, using audio, animation, graphics, and or video programs. You had to write out the scripts, build the storyboard, ‘hire’ talent/actors and find or create your own settings/stages (which may or may not be enhanced using computer graphics (CG)). With the The latest virtual augmented (and especially virtual) technologies, many of these steps can be eliminated or at least minimized. Video games, (especially narrative role playing games), for example, utilize avatars and virtual characters who appear on pre-configured ‘stages’.
Multi-player, role playing games
Multiplayer games provide a cast of characters who ‘act out’ based on their allowable actions. As the ‘story’ of the game unfolds, it is possible to screen cast (i.e. video record) the scene. Then, going back to the recording, one can edit the lengthy interactions into concise storylines. This is the function of of a process called ‘Machinima‘. In this course we have provided a sub module that discusses this functionality much further. Take a look and think abut how you can use it to:
teach story creation but having students edit the gameplay into a reasonably sized storyline
have students storyboard out the game a sit is played to see if they can identify the story elements.
Decide in advance the story and try to enact it using the video game.
Regardless of the method use choose,(or others you can think up) multi-player narrative games are a perfect way to short cut the video recording process.
Other virtual reality apps
Multiplayer games are more or less set up based on the story line of the narrative game you choose. Less structured are virtual reality apps such as Secondlife, which utilizes similar functionality but the interactions among your avatars and perhaps others they ‘meet’ online (or others you pre-arrange to meet) in the settings you select or the ones you build are not prearranged like they are with a multi-player narrative game.
Second life is mainly aimed at larger computing resources, such as laptops, or desktops. For smaller appliances such as iPads or Chrome Books, there are plenty of smaller apps that are not a fully feature rich that you can use. These include:
Or others. The idea is the same… like with second life you write out the script and storyboard it and then screen record/cast it. The scenarios more straight forward and the choice of location is a lot less but accomplish much the same.
Augmented Reality
The mediation here is much like that with CG. You create the backgrounds with out avatars and utilize it as your ‘setting /stage on which your on screen characters enact the story. It is much less costly but makes up for not having authentic settings or imagined locales.
There are plenty of virtual reality site and apps you can find all over Google Play Story, online on the Web and the App Store.
After Completing this set of Readings You are Expected to Do the Following
The idea is for you to explore these three ideas and come up with a scenario in which you would use them to teach story creation. Pick two of them and write out your ideas, along with a reflection about how these ideas strike you as potentially useful classroom activities. Make sure your plan includes specific details on how you would incorporate the five story creation elements introduced in this course: (Brnaigan’s four elements and Kintsch’s subject predicate analysis). Combine them into a single reflection and post them in the Drop Box set up in Canvas.
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We have already shown the relationships that exist between brainstorming and creativity and have made the case that, perhaps, creativity is a learned activity. In the sciences, this is much more self-evident.
In the STEM disciplines, the concept of brainstorming is quite different (or is it??) and is more in line with scientific thinking (i.e., feedback control theory) that we can actually diagram out: [one_third].[/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last].[/one_third_last]
This diagram visually describes the concept of a feedback loop that controls the dynamic behavior of a ‘system’. In this case, brainstorming comes in when it involves the learner/knower receiving feedback so he or she can then adapt the variables in order to find a more correct solution. This process can actually be mapped out using mathematical equations. With story perhaps the ‘brainstorming’ part that comes into play is more in line with the sociological/psychological aspect of control theory aspects of the story line. We make observations about the central character in a story and evaluate whether he or she reacts sensibly to the conflicts that arise. Perceptual control theory (PCT) is a model of behavior based on the principles of negative feedback, but differs in important respects from engineering control theory.
In PCT theory, organisms (i.e., protagonists) control neither their own behavior, nor the external environmental variables surrounding them. Instead they can only control their own perceptions of those variables. Actions are not ‘controlled’, but varied. According to the standard catch-phrase of the field, “behavior is the control of perception”. This fundamentally contradicts the classical notion of linear causation of behavior by stimuli in which environmental stimuli are thought to cause behavioral responses, mediated (according to Cognitive Psychology) by intervening cognitive processes. In a story, when main characters make judgments about their environment, often misjudgments are made due to his or her misconceptions that shield the real causes. This is also where the moral of the story comes in that we translate into the so-called ‘teachable moments’ when learning takes place. They are made more memorable when empathy with the main character is produced (see the concept of ‘relevance’ in ARCS motivation theory).
Story and Knowledge Acquisition and the Fifth Element of Our Story Construct
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, in this course we are making a strong case for story as a construct/framework for knowledge acquisition, whether it be in K-12 or business situations. In fact, a friend and colleague of mine is a man by the name of Rick Stone (no relation to Biz Stone). Among other things he is the president of Story Work Institute, a consulting firm that uses story as a framework to help clients brand their image and ‘tell their story’ to the public. If we had the time this term one of the assignments I would have liked to have you do would be to list all the ways/industries/situations story can be used and make a list of those companies/institutes that so this. I will leave this on my wish list for the future.
Schema Theory
One book we have yet to cover on story constructs is Stories, Scripts and Scenes: Aspects of Schema Theory by Jean Mandler. To get an idea about this book, click the amazon link below and select look inside.
This is Wikipedia’s take on Schema Theory:
Schema theory describes an organized pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment. People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required.
People use schemata to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding. Examples of schemata include academic rubrics, social schemas, stereotypes, social roles, scripts, worldviews, and archetypes. In Piaget’s theory of development, children adopt a series of schemata to understand the world.
How appropriate! In other words, your definition of story should have evolved considerably over the past five weeks! Go back to your first definition, then look at your second. Now add the concept of schema into the mix and you should begin to understand that a story is not a ‘thing’ but a process of organizing thoughts, emotions, ideas. Makes sense no? That is why story has become so ingrained in our psyche over the ions that humans have been on this earth. This is what differentiates humans form animals and is what, to some, will make it impossible for computers to evolve into full artificial intelligence (in spite of the article you may have or are about to read in the readings on creativity regarding computational intelligence).
Take this anecdote as an example: In the 1950s, Gregory Bateson was asked if he thought artificial intelligence in computers was possible. He responded:
I don’t know for sure, but if you ask a computer a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question and its response is ‘that reminds me of a story’, then it would be close.”
An interesting concept… this is not all that we cover in this program about AI but it hints at one of the key issues that knocks down at least Google’s concept of artificial intelligence… more on that in our Media Ecology course
Getting back to Mandler…. If you can get a hold of the book (Amazon is best) and are interested in analyzing the schema behind story and the scientific proof of its powers, you can find it on Amazon.. Alternatively there is a “Look Inside” option to look over various pages:
Click here to Read a Book Review of Mandler’s Book
This book completed a personal journey of my own in my exploration of story and its predictive powers. Here is a short paragraph from that book that became that ‘silver bullet’ I was looking for:
“In my opinion what is needed to clarify the notion of a ‘levels effect’ in story processing (schema theory is actually a hierarchy of thoughts and ideas) is to coordinate the various analyses that have been discussed. Walter Kintsch’s propositional analyses provide some predictability in terms of argument overlap and other aspects of linguistical connectivity of statements at the micro-level of analysis (Kintsch, a linguist, was particularly concerned with memory and reading and writing). Kintch’s premise is that based on how a sentence is set up what happens to a subject can be predicted. This predictability causes us to make judgments when interruptions occur (see the tie back to Branigan’s four points??). So, at the suggestion of Mandler, we borrow from Kintsch to add a fifth element to our definition of story constructs (Branigan’s 4 plus Kintsch makes five).
Causal Chain Analysis
To repeat, A causal chain analysis ties right back to Branigan and provides a significant source of predictability at an intermediate level of analysis, especially insofar as it maps out within-constituent structure. It is this element that is the tie breaker and provides the construct that makes story a learning engine…. after years of research I think we have finally found the ‘smoking gun’ that we need to create our construct and build a complete definition for story… the fact that we have invented the concept of ‘surprise ending’ provides negative proof of this concept… we are surprised when the story foes not end as we predict!
it is a means of communicating that includes at least the five elements we have reviewed so far (Branigan’s 4 plus Kintsch in some form. In the next cycles we will visit a few more supplements to help round out our definition plus we will also discuss the delivery mechanism (analog vs digital and all the latter’s various media types) to determine its affect on interpretation.
Constituent Analysis
A story constituent analysis provides still another source of information, at the macro-structural level. If these three type of analysis could be amalgamated into a comprehensive system, it should provide a theory of great predictive power.”
In other words, for our final definition, look at propositional analysis, causal chain, and individual story constituents (i.e. Branigan) (if you need to know more about each of the three check out the links I have provided) to compare/identify how they actually work together to form the basis form memory/recall and knowledge acquisition even with the passage of time (long term memory).
Just know that our penchant for pattern/meaning making leads us to be very selective about which memories have meaning. This is a two-edged sword… because it also can lead to misconceptions and incorrect assumptions. That is also what lends power to our story creation definition.. when judgments are made by the main character one can see the results in very clear, personal terms.
Story Proof: Pass Number Two
The following is one part of a Paper I presented on Digital Narrative at an international conference some time ago. This particular portion of the talk focuses on story memory.
Digging Deeper - Some Important Examples
Enough of the science of story. If you are still not convinced, here are some additional readings to stimulate your thinking on this issue.
Post a short reflection on schema theory and how it adds context to the definition of story that we are creating. This will also play heavily in our S.T.O.R.Y. rubric that we will be developing next cycle and your last definition of story.
The best way to explore this book is to go directly to the book’s resource site. It provides just about all you want to know about the book prior to starting.
Not that itis expected that you will have lots of time to explore further. But in case you do and/or wish to do so after the term is over, I have provided you some additional resources below so you can delve further into this idea of digital story:
One cannot leave digital storytelling without first spending time on Joe Lambert’s Storycenter site. Joe was a personal mentor of mine and was the one who got me first engaged in storytelling and taught me that I, too, have a story to tell.
This site has a plethora of articles, ideas, and projects related to digital story. Another “must have” resource.
Do This
After reviewing Parts I & II, make some reflective notes to synthesize what you find and then utilize these thoughts in your Discussion #6.
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The intent of this module is to introduce you to character development and the role it plays in helping one suspend his or her disbelief. It does not look like a very long module but it should serve to have you begin to think about how you are going to portray your leading character in your final project and demonstrate your understanding of the content in this lesson.
Character Development… Beyond Empathy Building to Making our Story Credible
The central character usually faces a decision, whether to succumb to the conflict or to fight. In other words a conflict is not a conflict unless the character notices it and makes some type of judgment about it. Most often, this conflict/challenge cannot be overcome unless the character goes through a transformation or change. Sometimes that requirement may also compel him or her to go against his or her natural inclinations or morals.
According to Laycoff (1996) every language in the world has a way in its grammar to express direct causation –a local application of force that has a local effect in place and time. For example when one drinks glass of water, the direct causation of a thirst being gone is that you did it. Direct causation is also that element that provides the teachable moment. Once your students understand this concept, they will begin to learn the importance of critically reading/viewing/listening for causation. In class we often look for the word “because” to answer these questions. Cause and effect helps transcend story into any genre, whether fiction or non-fiction and makes it a useful element in multiple disciplines. We suggest that this conceptualization of story has a place in common core… even in informational reading.
So far, we have been talking about direct causation. Indirect causation is less discernible and implies a higher order thinking skill. Discovering causation on either level can be intimidating and makes comprehension more difficult if there are more than two or three being implied in a story line. In science experiments we usually deal with only one variable. We can do more than one, which leads us to quadratic equations.. but that is another idea entirely and something we leave for another time (and course).
In summary: Causation is a significant element that needs to be embedded in the story in conjunction with other constructs that provide a means to effectively measure the relative teaching efficacy of that story.
My personal ah-ha moment in all of this occurred when I realized that the parallels between a well constructed story and a well constructed experiment/research study are almost one to one! THAT is what, for me, turned story into such an important teaching tool. Add that to the context/emotional aspect surrounding character development and empathy building, I am not sure if a better tool exists.
JUST KNOW THIS: IT IS BUILDING EMPATHY WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER THAT SUPPORTS THE REQUIREMENT THAT WE SUSPEND OUR DISBELIEF AND BUY INTO THE STORY LINE, IN SUPPORT OF BRANIGAN’S FOURTH PRINCIPLE (TO TELL THE STORY IN A CREDIBLE WAY)
With that, we introduce the idea of character archetype.
Click for two resources that list some common types
A couple more links to look at character archetypes
We covered character archetypes in an earlier cycle. Now we correlate it back the story schema and perhaps recognize archetypes in relationship to its thru-line and adds to a story’s power as a teaching engine. Character analysis is a great teaching tool. The real value of archetypes in the story invention process is that they add to the a consistent schema… through the revelations about the main character’s make-up and his or her allowable actions (a term often used in video game design) another vehicle to add predictability.
There is a lot we can learn about character development in the story building process. Perhaps that the best way to teach you this is through an example. Many of you know Robert Redford as the actor. Most of you may not know that he is actually a better film maker than an actor. I learned this first hand when I went to work for his (ex)brother-in-law… my former Dean in an earlier appointment at another university. My Dean’s wife’s sister was once married to Redford. My Dean was an academy award winning filmmaker in his own right and he taught me about Redford’s film making career. He was the one who got me to watching Redford’s films. One in particular serves our purposes here.
Quiz Show is about the Twenty One quiz show scandals of the 1950s, in which it chronicle’s the rise and fall of popular contestant Charles Van Doren who became a national phenom when he started a protracted winning streak on that TV show after beating (it was a rigged beating) of Herb Stempel (who we also later learn was a ‘rigged’ champion). The movie stars John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Ralph Fiennes, with Paul Scofield, David Paymer, Hank Azaria, and Christopher McDonald appearing in supporting roles.(sorry this steals one of my main questions that you will take after watching the the film… who is the starting role and who is the supporting actor? How can we tell?) Hopefully, by watching this one you will find out.
Do This
Robert Redford is the director. Redford, besides being a superb visual story teller, is a great film maker who understands character development. If it is true that events leading up to cause and effect require some type of judgment on the part of the main character, then it follows that the best ‘teachable moments’ in a story emanate from a well constructed character development thru-line. Quiz Show is one of my favorite character development movies of all time… This is because I have been able to use it in more than one occasion in several classes to demonstrate film making and visual storying both with K12 students and undergraduates. I now offer it to you as an exemplar for character development so you can get the idea that a strong correlation exists sound story constructs, character development, and teaching and learning.
Watch the movie and enjoy. When you are done, answer the self test to see for yourself whether you get my point. Then answer the survey question in Canvas to earn your points for this activity.
To watch Quiz Show go to the module in canvas noted for this cycle.
The movie is password protected… the password is posted on the Assignments Checklist. The self check comes at the end of the module
Recall this quote from our first set of readings from Cycle One:
What is the place of imagination in education? The word imagination does not appear in the government’s list of “Goals 2000,” nor does it turn up on lists of behavioral objectives or educational outcomes. There is no imagination curriculum or pedagogy of the imagination in our schools. Yet if, as the poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “the imagination is the power of the mind over the possibilities of things,” then to neglect the imagination is also to impoverish children’s worlds and to narrow their hopes.
— Herbert Kohl
In his Foreword to The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories, by Gianni Rodari, 1996, p. ix.
Creativity is a learned function
While story can be seen as a fundamental construct for (i.e., the science behind) knowledge acquisition (see readings #4), that alone may not be enough. The art part of this (science meets fiction in the true sense of the word) is that stories create opportunities to be creative. That is where the critical thinking part comes into play.
Biz Stone (2014) –he is a co-founder of Twitter– wrote this about creativity and imposing limits:
-“A character with character limits characters“
Stone’s basic philosophy is to utilize constraints as a motivator with the idea of embracing constraints because they are provocative. They are challenging. They wake you up. They make you more creative. They make you better… In other words necessity is the mother of all invention.
He makes his point using the following anecdotes:
When Harrison Ford was shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark, three months of filming in Tunisia gave him a terrible case of the runs. When it came time to shoot a long, drawn out sword battle, Ford, desperate to call it a day, suggested that when faced with the sword flashing enemy, he simply pull out his pistol and shoot the guy. This improvised solution became one of the film’s best, funniest and most iconic scenes.
When shooting the movie Jaws, Steven Spielberg wanted to build a giant realistic mechanical shark in order to shoot scenes of the scary beast attacking people. But making that full-sized shark became a budgeting nightmare, so he came up with a low-cost solution. He would use a first-person perspective (from the shark’s point of view) underwater, looking hungrily of the swimmers. Way scarier!
Hermann Hauser, the guy whose company created ARM, the tech firm that powers the chips that are practically in all cell phones, set his development team them off on a project to build a chip with no money, no time, and few resources. The result was a low-power chip turned that out to be perfect for cell phones… now that chip dominates the market.
The 140-character limit on Twitter was no accident. The beginning of the product was to expand on the status messages sent out in response to SMS messages received on your phone. The wanted to be able to customize the responses (away from my desk, available, etc.). At the time, most cell phones imposed a 165 character limit on messaging. SO, if you take away the 15 characters they allotted for the average user name, they were left with 145. To be consistent, they decided on the 140-character limit. In retrospect, the 140 character message has taken on an art form of its own. So, expanding that limit has never been considered at Twitter due to its iconic stature in the world of texting/tweeting.
Lastly, Stone offers this scenario to help children with their creativity:
When sitting at the dinner table with kids, hand them a crayon and ask them to draw something.. The usual response will be “draw what?” The parent then says “draw anything”… to which the child will most likely be to stare at a blank page and ask again… “draw what?”
If, on the other hand, the parent says “draw a dump truck” that would most likely do the trick. The final artifact may not end up looking anything like a dump truck .. but limiting ones options gives the child a place to start… in educational parlance, this is called advance organizers.
To prove our point here, take what we provide you in Activity #5 that comes later…. (the 30-second story): “The once was a man and then he died”.. the end
Yes, we do add some pressure/limits on your creativity by requiring it to be a 30-second story but we are actually playing not fair because we should give you some picture to start with .. (but in this case we won’t because I am dying to see what you come up with!). Your job just got harder.. What if we said that the man was born in Nantucket.. all of a sudden all sorts of preconceived images come into play, especially if you know anything about Limericks.
Brainstorming
When working with students (or as a consultant who has been hired to come into a company to help the folks create their branding story), you start somewhere: in both scenarios, you start with a series of questions. Once answered you will spark curiosity and all sorts of taking off points.
Creativity is not all about the artsy kind .. in education and training we use the term to mean kick starting the brain-storming process.
Just know that the process of developing story is one of discovery. First of all, do not be afraid of failure. As the story creators at Pixar learned (Catmill, 2014), that as much as one wants to preplan story and create an error free environment, their motto is “be wrong as fast as you can” .. meaning that with all the planning, most stories re developed iteratively over time.. and it is often best to find the holes and fix them during the production process.. ending up being cheaper and better outcome.
Businesses also have the need to find employee candidates who are creative/critical thinkers. Companies like Microsoft, Apple Computers, and Google, actually hold competitions to find the brightest individuals. The scenes in the movie The Internship, for example, were not entirely contrived. About ten years ago a book appeared on the shelves that delved deeply into how Microsoft during job interviews would have candidates attempt to resolve hypothetical problems.
Lastly, we cannot leave this topic without talking about the fact that major differences exist between education, business, and the sciences with regards to their views on brainstorming. When doing my research about the concept of brainstorming I discovered that the sciences view brainstorming in a completely different fashion. We will investigate this concept further in a module on cognition that will be a part of a later cycle.
Digging Deeper
Let’s look at some other ideas on creativity and its power as a motivator:
First is a very special Webpage (and is also where I borrowed the opening graphic at the top of this page). It talks about the Torrance Test for Creativity, which is a seminal instrument. Here is a short description of the test and it impact:
Next is a white paper describing computational reasoning in computing but also differentiates pure reasoning from creativity and, therefore, provides additional insights:
Catmull, E. (2014) Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration. New York: Random House.
Poundstone, W. (2004). How would you move Mount Fuji: How the world’s smartest companies select the most creative thinkers. New York: Little Brown & Company.
Stone, B. (2014). What a little bird told me; Confessions of the creative mind. New York: Grand Central.
What's Next?
When you are satisfied you have absorbed this material you can go ahead and complete the next set of readings by clicking the button below.
So far, we have been discussing and formulating our ideas on story. Now let’s take a look at what may be the most precise definition of story invention so that you can get the idea that story is not a thing but a construct/framework that can be applied to teaching and learning.
It is from this book that I gathered some initial ideas about story creation. According to Branigan, the process boils down to four basic elements:
TIME and PLACE – all stories need to have a setting or background, which in a film or video is shown visually. Sometimes, like in the video, life is moving along, the characters are happy. THEN the disruption occurs. This aspect (sometimes referred to as Act 1) sets the scene. Sometimes the disruption occurs immediately, as in the Bourne movie (below). In these scenes viewers are also reminded of the what happened in previous episodes (the Bourne Supremacy was the third in the Bourne series) through a series of flashbacks. Time must pass. In short films/narratives, only those moments that create the crucial ‘test’ or pose the essential conflict to the main character are shown, lest it become overly complicated and confusing.
CAUSE & EFFECT – This is that all important moment in which the central character faces a decision… to succumb to the conflict or to fight. In other words a conflict is not a conflict unless the character notices it and make some type of judgment about it. Most often, this conflict/challenge cannot be overcome unless the character goes through some type of transformation or change and that requirement may also compel the character to go against his or her natural inclinations or morals –thus, the story conflict is born. In storytelling parlance this is often referred to as the disruption . Recall that moment in the song by John Lennon (Beautiful Boy) that describes this phenomenon:
This is an important teaching moment in the story invention process and represents the key difference between introducing the elements of story hypothetically and in the abstract and teaching students how to actually CONSTRUCT stories. We have found that, once students understand this concept, they begin to learn how to read critically and actually LOOK for things in the book they are reading… when that all important movie begins to play in their heads. We teach that a tragedy results when the conflict wins, a comedy is that story in which the character wins (i.e., overcomes the stumbling block, or moral dilemma). This is what separates a story from a heap (a list of unrelated facts) or a catalog (a list of related facts a simple chronology of events, etc.).
a CENTRAL CHARACTER who notices this potential and is required to make some judgment. Recall that there is a only finite number of character types. Victoria Schmidt in her book, identified only forty-five. Each ‘allowable actions’ (to borrow a term from the video game industry to describe how developers program their characters) are limited to their own personality strengths/flaws, which makes for the rising action and central conflict. A story is not a story without this confrontation between life and the main character’s limitations/strengths. Recall that famous line in Lennon’s song “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans”). Again, this concept is central to understanding how stories are actually built.
because all stories need both a teller and a listener, a storyteller needs to decide on how they are going to COMMUNICATE THE STORY (conflict) . This is crucial. The story needs to be credible so that listeners/viewers/readers, etc. are willing to suspend their disbelief for an instance and buy into the storyline(By the way, isn’t that what teaching is all about? having student suspend their disbelief that what is being taught to them is important/noteworthy). This can be done visually, through a look, a series of metaphoric images, in a voice-over, or as a part of a dialog/monologue within a scene. Shakespeare often did this in the form of asides in which the main character actually spoke directly to the audience. Notice the conversation in the video clip between the two characters in the video below as they were speeding away from the scene. Not only did the director present us with the conflict through the look on Bourne’s face (and change in music) as he was taking that drink of water after his jog, but he also reinforced it (just in case the audience missed it somehow) through the dialog. It was this interruption that caused a change in the daily lives of the characters. Brilliant!
Here is a video that demonstrates the four elements in action:
Click on the video below. It is annotated and was taken from the opening moments of the movie ‘Bourne Supremacy’
Click to view Bourne Supremacy Trailer
OK, sorry, the annotations are so hard to read. The idea behind this edited version of the Bourne Ultimatum is that, first, it provides you a backdrop of what happened in previous books that led up to this point. It was a good way to combine the setting of the table for this episode plus getting you a sense of time passing (element #1). Next, some disruption happens (note the music even changes). The music signals the fact that Bourne notices something and makes a judgment(element 2). The cause has now been provided. In case you didn’t get it, through the dialog in the car, Bourne tells his girl friend (and the audience) what is happening (element #4.. communicating the story in a credible way).
We will leave the effect for you to watch when you go rent the movie but trust me.. there was one… The director also demonstrates how to draw folks into story and creating empathy for the main character. This is this important aspect that also makes the story credible (the fourth element in Branigan’s tetrad. We will study character development in a later lesson.
So, we need to take one more step. There are certain criteria in character development that are needed to be present to create that sense of empathy. This same function is directly related to the author being able to make the constructs of cause and effect come alive and believable so the listener/viewer/reader is able to suspend his or her disbelief. These are what are known as the transformational aspects of the character’s development within the story.
The video below is actually the remaining portion of that presentation that I started the semester with on Story: What We know So far… Now that we have introduced Branigan, let’s take a further look at the implications the four elements have on the whole invention process and delve into the actual transformations that need to take place in a well developed story. We also take a short look at cause constructs to help you better understand that concept. It is very important that we fully understand proper story creation if it is to be the foundation for any instruction you design. Bad design is bad design, regardless of the tool(s) one utilizes, even if the tool unto itself is a valid one.
Story and Learning - First Pass
This is a summary of the information written above. In it I discuss transformational aspects of character development and relates my ideas on story at a certain point along the way in my journey into the truth about story creation. As you will see in later lessons, we still have more to go on this and will eventually be further developing the role of character development and adding a fifth element to our definition.
To recap: We suggest that story has been, is, and will continue to serve multiple functions in the learning process. It is a way to organize knowledge in meaningful chunks to aid recall. In oral cultures, stories and fables were used for centuries to pass on knowledge from generation. The construct of the Bible is built around moralistic narratives to teach cause and effect and consequences for one’s actions. Given that students of all ages are attracted to good stories and they provide such good teachable moments, then integrating them into multiple areas of curriculum certainly makes sense in certain circumstances.
Given that story demonstrates many epistemological qualities, it follows that the instructional power of digital story creation should carry over into other content areas. It appears that the concepts of cause and effect help to create educative value in story constructs that carry it throughout the curriculum. We will explore this notion in later lesson modules.
Do This!
By now you should have a little better sense for story invention. It is time for you to re-look at your original definition of what a story is in terms of these new concepts/constructs.
Go back to the Assignments Checklist in Canvas and follow the instructions for posting to the Discussion Board your updated definition of story.
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There is the FCAT/FSA/EOC definition of what a story is (five paragraphs with a character, a plot, a scene, a conflict,.. etc.) That makes a story a thing… and just to let you know ahead of time, we are not into describing ‘things’ this course.
What a Story is Not
Perhaps the best way to explain what a story is, is by providing what are known as ‘non-examples‘.
Here is a partial list of non-stories:
a CATALOG is a simple list of event that are similarly related. This is like a chronology of one’s life.. names, dates ordered by year of occurrence. This is not a story
an EPISODE is a collection of consequences, things that occur.. again, not a story.
an UNFOCUSED CHAIN is just that.. a list of cause and effect without any sort of focus or context… again not a story.
a FOCUSED CHAIN is a series of episodes.. their relationship is to each other, not a character or without any judgment about them… nope, not either.
There are actually several more to add. But to list them now may only serve to confuse you. Just know that each of the constructs is not the same as a story due to one or more missing elements. Our job will be to add those as we go along… to help you come up with a definition.
So as not to destroy your own expectations as to what a story is, we will not go much further along this line. Instead, we will focus for now on demonstrating to you a rationale behind how story constructs are such important opportunities to motivate and help students of all ages learn things. Your assignment this time is to first build your own definition and we will set about this term to hopefully change/add to that line of thinking.
But we have to start somewhere. My guess is that some of you work with story all day long (those of you who are elementary school teachers). Others MAY work with story (or think they do). You consider your self a good story consumer but perhaps not a very good story creator. YOU are my target audience here! My job is to show you all about story and help you find what took me about ten years of study to find: that holy grail of story invention that ill help you become better writers, readers, thinkers, and media producers. If I do my job correctly here, at the end of this term you will feel much more empowered about story and will see it all over the place as a tool to do many, many different kinds of things: from designing to selling to marketing, to teaching.
Please spend the time to view this video narrated by Dr. Kenny to provide a framework to begin this course.
Storyproof: About the Book
From the author’s Website:
The first-ever scientific proof that “story structure” is an information delivery system powerhouse, evolutionarily hardwired into human brains. Using evidence gathered from 16 fields of science research (neural biology, developmental psychology, neural linguistics, clinical psychology, cognitive sciences, information theory, neural net modeling, education theory, knowledge management theory, anthropology, organization theory, narratology, medical science, narrative therapy, and, of course, storytelling and writing) STORY PROOF presents the overwhelming evidence that human minds naturally—automatically—perceive in specific story terms, understand and create meaning through specific story elements, and remember and recall in and through story structures.
Like Stephen Krashen’s important work in The Power of Reading, Story Proof collects and analyzes the research that validates the importance of story, story reading, and storytelling to the brain development and education of children and adults. Accomplished researcher and storyteller Kendall Haven, establishes the need for understanding the research findings in neural psychology and brain development and the value of a common definition of story if one is to fully grasp the importance and necessity of story to the development of the human mind. To support his case, he reviews a wealth of research from storytellers, teachers, and others who have experienced the power of story firsthand.
Haven has collected anecdotal experiences from over 100 performing storytellers and from 1,800 story practitioners (mostly teachers) who have made extensive use of stories. He has read more than 150 qualitative and quantitative research studies that discuss the effectiveness of stories and/or storytelling for one or more specific applications (education, organizational management, knowledge management, medical and narrative therapy, etc.). Forty of these studies were literature reviews and comparative studies including analysis of over 1,000 studies and descriptive articles. He has also gathered research evidence from his own story performances for total audiences of over 4 million and from conducting story writing workshops with 200,000 students and 40,000 teachers.
We have been hearing recently about the trend away from narrative fiction as the choice of a new generation….Haven looks at the tradition and examines the research behind story to make his major point that we cannot ignore this genre and that we do so at the peril of effective teaching and powerful teaching strategies….In the face of drill-and-kill reading programs, Haven reminds us that story can be and is as powerful as ever.
Not that I have to sell you on this book, but here is more:
Links open up in New Tab. After reading each one, close that tab and click back on Canvas Module Tab
Read the first couple of chapters of the book Storyproof and try to distill as much information from it as you can. The idea behind my asking you to read this book is not as much for you memorize its contents but to set the table for the rest of the course. In short, it is a ‘proof statement’ and becomes our jumping off point for future lessons and readings.
Keeping in mind that you already were asked about your own personal definition of what a story is/is not: Write down a short list of those things about story that:
you already knew
you thought you already knew but found were incorrect assumptions, based on what was said in the book
something that you did not know before but now have added to your thinking in terms of the value of story as a tool to assist you in developing instruction or to build your business
Post your responses in the Drop Box in Canvas. Next cycle you will review some of your peer’s responses and comments.
As I said we have to start somewhere.. so why not start with whom I believe is THE super star of story invention when working with children?
Admittedly, I am pulling information directly from the Web about Rodari’s work because so much has already been written about him (albeit most of it in Italian) so why (re)invent the wheel?
A third question you may have is why do we start with him in this course?
I have used his work as an introduction for several digital storytelling workshops I have conducted with youths and have personal experience with the extent to which Rodari’s work has been extra-ordinarily successful in ‘setting the table’ for the workshops for folks of all ages. It has made a believer out of me that all children have a natural sense for story and, with the proper guidance, teaching them how to invent/create well-formatted stories is a very creative way to motivate them and to contextualize academic content and has also had a huge impact on their lessening their reluctance to read in general.
So,I am introducing you to Rodari and testify to his relevance to beginning this course.
Stay with me on this… it is my hope you will see what I have seen…
“La fantasia fa parte di noi come la ragione: guardare dentro la fantasia è un modo come un altro per guardare dentro noi stessi”
Translation: “Our imagination is as a part of us is as reasoning: look to fantasy as another way to look inside ourselves to find both”
From Wikipedia
Gianni Rodari (23 October 1920 – 14 April 1980) was an Italian writer and journalist, most famous for his children’s books. For his lasting contribution as a children’s writer he received the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970 and many consider him Italy’s most important twentieth-century children’s author. His books have been translated into many languages, though few have been published in English.
Rodari was born in Omegna, a small town on Lake Orta in the province of Novara in northern Italy. His father, a baker, died when Rodari was only ten. Rodari and his two brothers, Cesare and Mario, were raised by his mother in her native village, in the province of Varese. After three years at the seminary in Seveso, Rodari received his teacher’s diploma at the age of seventeen and began to teach elementary classes in rural schools of the Varese district. He had interest in music (three years of violin lessons) and literature (discovered the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Lenin and Trotsky which sharpened his critical sense).
Rodari was also an educator and activist who truly understood the power of the imaginative life. In this delightful classic — now translated into English for the first time — Rodari presents numerous and wonderful techniques for creating stories. He discusses these specific techniques in the context of the imagination, fairy tales, folk tales, children’s stories, cognitive development, and compassionate education. Gianni Rodari was one of the founders of the innovative educational approach that began in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and is now making itself felt throughout the U.S. The Grammar of Fantasy grew out of a series of informal workshops that Rodari conducted for the teachers of Reggio Emilia.
Rodari in the news
Take a look at this You Tube video. Although it is entirely in Italian and runs about nine minutes but you can get a sense of who Rodari was and his relationship with children and story within about 3 minutes into the video. We will get to experience his work directly in our first activity that follows this module.
About the Book: The Grammar of Fantasy
This book focuses on how our imagination works in order to take us beyond the wall of a dull scholastic routine and into the
fascinating world of creativity. According to Rodari, ”
a word is similar to a stone thrown into a pond: while the latter produces a series of rapidly changing concentric ripples which gently stir the water-lilies as well as a child’s paper-boat, the former triggers incredibly intricate chain-reactions involving sounds and images,dreams, memories and – endlessly – other words and analogies…”
Sydney Clements Book Review
One of the most elusive characteristics of what I’ve seen in Reggio Emilia is the relationship between fantasy and reality in the daily doings there. In this book we have the theoretical basis for this easy movement between fantasy and fact. Called The Grammar of Fantasy , written in beautiful, accessible and poetic language, translated seamlessly by Jack Zipes, a teacher who wants to learn how to help children make stories has here all the tools she or he needs.
Playing with language is something that comes easily to some of us. It feels like a gift, like perfect pitch. But Gianni Rodari shows us how to invitae others into the games we play with language. He tried this out at Diana School in Reggio Emilia and gave a series of lectures there in 1972. This book tells us some of the stories he made up, but far more important shows us the process of making up stories, by oneself, in a group, and giving the tools to the children so they can do it also. Their stories are quite perfect, and, like children’s drawing and painting, have a quality which charms both adults and children in the audience.
Schools have traditionally relegated imagination to a very small place, valuing memory and attention much more highly. This book leads us into imagination. It shows us, as have Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Vivian Gussin Paley, how we can help children use their images — pictures in their minds which have importance and meaning to them — and make wonderful creations from them.
So Rodari talks about “The Fantastic Binomial” that is, the ability of the mind, given two words that normally are not related, say, streetcar and refrigerator, to make a connection, a story, that is satisfying. Children can do this too, as is illustrated in the book with stories about “light and shoes” and “dog and closet”. What would the children in your class do, if presented with such word-pairs?
And he talks about hypotheses: What if a lion walked into the police station? And “fairytale salad” What if Cinderella bumped into Tom Thumb on the way to meeting the wolf, what then?
In a chapter called “Recasting Fairy Tales” the Cinderella story is analyzed (Cinderella (A) lives in the house of her father (B) and stands in a relationship to B, different from the relationship that her stepsisters (C and D) have with B. While B, C, and D go to the palace, (E) where there is some kind of event the ball (F), A remains alone. However, thanks to the intervention of G, A, too, is able to go to E and makes an extraordinary impression on the prince (H). Etc.
Then Rodari shows us how to move further and further from the original cast. We use the structure of the Cinderella story, changing the characters and the place but keeping the SHAPE of the story, weaving it until Carlo (who replaces Cinderella as A), the Count’s stable boy, with the help of the cabin boy,( who replaces the fairy godmother) stows away on the yacht (replacing the Ball, E) taking the Count (who replaces Cinderella’s father B) and his children (C and D) on a the vacation trip (F). The yacht is shipwrecked and Carlo gives a cigarette lighter to the island’s medicine man (H) and as a result is celebrated as the god of fire.
In another section of this rich book Rodari introduces us to Propp’s cards:
A German named Propp analyzed the themes of fairy tales into their elements. Cards were made for the children, to help them construct stories. I found even the translated titles of these cards difficult, and have rewritten them in terms I think could be illustrated for English- speaking children:
1. Someone goes away from home.
2. A rule is given to that person.
3. The rule is broken.
4. The villain tries to find out what’s going on.
5. The villain receives information about his victim.
6. The villain attempts to deceive his victim.
7. The victim gets fooled and so (unwittingly) helps his enemy.
. . . Etc. (There are 31)
The children use these cards to generate stories: a father leaves the house and tells his children not to throw flower vases from the balcony onto the heads of pedestrians (1, 2, 3); a difficult task is to go to the cemetery at midnight (25) etc.
Stepping back from the specifics of the book, what we have here is a map into a world neglected in most schooling, but not at campfires nor at bedtimes in nurturant homes. We have the enchantment of story and the science of story, connected. People have made up stories for very good reasons, and need them as surely as we need food and drink. When schooling avoids storytelling, the schooling maladapts us for being human.
When Reggio children study the shadows they draw a lot of shadows — from imagination, from observation, after tracing real shadows on sidewalks etc. This is representation of experience, or representation of theory and not experience, but it is all scientific inquiry. These hypotheses, once drawn, can be compared with future experience, and found correct or incorrect or, interestingly, sometimes correct. They are, if you will, stories: the bird shadow will fly into the cage (taped bars on the wall) and back out this afternoon; things that move, like people and butterflies, have shadows that move, while things that stay still, like trees and houses, have shadows that stay still. Whether true or false, these stories help children examine their world more carefully, thinking like scientists think.
I believe in what I have come to call “hot cognition” — the driving of learning by emotional attachments or passions. Stories always engross humans, so they are rich stuff of which to make learning. They have internal logics which differ, in kind, from mathematical logic: a man changes into a cat passing under a barrier. To change back he must pass under the barrier again, from the other side. If he goes across the barrier as a cat, he must go over it, to avoid its magical properties. Do you see?
When Rodari helps us see connections between science or math and story he helps us knit our lives back together. When he helps us see how education and art come together, he helps us do our jobs well.
Rodari says:
“By using stories and those fantastic methods that produce them, we help children to enter reality through the window instead of through the door. It is more fun. Therefore, it is more useful.”
Do This!
Once you are done with this information proceed to Activity #1, in Canvas Modules, which is taken right out of his book.
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