What We Learn in School
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.
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.