Instructional design/DS Learning

What is a story?

Story, in the classic sense, is a tale that contains a narrative arc: A sympathetic character encounters a challenge that he or she must confront and solve.

Notice the elements involved:

• Character: someone you want to read or hear about
• A challenge (complication): This is the engine that drives the character’s actions
• Confronting the challenge: the actions
• Solving the challenge: the resolution; the end of the journey; the lesson learned.

What is Jed Clampett’s narrative arc? (Watch the video again if you need to.)

• A mountain man struggling to feed his family (character) goes out to hunt.
• He shoots at food but strikes oil. Next thing you know, he’s a millionaire. (challenge)
• His relatives tell him: head for California. So he loads the family on the truck (confronting challenge)
• and moves to Beverly Hills, where the ragged, wide-eyed family finds a strange and fascinating new world (resolution, with promise of plenty of resulting challenges).

What is storytelling?

Storytelling is the act of crafting a tale that presents a character confronting and solving a problem.
We encounter it all the time in everyday life, such as:

• A song about a poor man who discovers oil on his property.
  
• A movie about how to get a crippled space capsule back to earth (Apollo 13)
  
• A novel about surviving the rise of communism in early 20th-century Russia (Dr. Zhivago)
  

You can find more examples below.

What is digital storytelling?

Digital storytelling is simply the use of digital tools to tell stories. If you want your students to engage in digital storytelling, you need to have them combine true stories about people confronting challenges with digital tools for conveying those stories.

Examples of digital storytelling tools:

• A YouTube video
  
• A podcast
  
• Soundslides (images plus audio)
  
• A Prezi or VoiceThread project (text, audio and/or video)
  
• An animated story-building website, such as Storybird
  
• A Twitter exchange curated and organized with Storify

So, are these digital storytelling examples?

1. Matthew Hudson's video is good example of digital storytelling, combining narration, still images and music. Watch it here (control-click for a new tab or window) and then return for a quick explanation of its narrative arc.

Matt's narrative arc:

• He wakes each day wondering if the violence in Oakland will claim his life.
  
• He mourns the loss of his close friend Tommy.
  
• He blames the prevalence of drugs in the community for leaving youth with nowhere to turn.
  
• But he decides to lean on his family and his music to help him make the right choices.

2. Jillian Cecchini's curation on Storify qualifies as a digital story. Read about James Cameron's descent to the lowest known point on earth.

Cameron's narrative arc:

• He prepares for seven years, building both the sub and his physical endurance.
  
• He succeeds in hitting bottom, and it "never felt so good."
  
• He returns with inspiration for his films and a renewed appreciation for his place in the world, and he inspires others.

Application

Before taking the quiz, read Molly McMillan's article, "Dog lovers turn out" here. (Ctrl+click or Command+click to open link in a new window)

1 What are the essential elements of a narrative arc?

	Character
	Background
	Drama
	Challenge
	Music
	Images
	Resolution

2 Does Molly McMillan's account of a dog show on Kansas.com qualify as digital storytelling?

	Yes
	No

3 Does "Dog lovers turn out" have a narrative arc?

	Yes
	No

The lesson for instructors: Watch for students who fall into the trap of telling facts with digital tools without relating a story.

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