Instructional design/DS Plan

Creating a Digital Storytelling Plan

Now that you’ve learned the concepts and practiced using them, it’s time to create your own plan for using digital storytelling in a class. Follow these steps to create a lesson that builds from simple to complex examples and concepts, or use the rapid-deployment model below.

Draw students’ attention

• Use a simple example of digital storytelling.
• Remember The Ballad of Jed Clampett: short, entertaining, engaging, told with digital tools.
• Alternate approach: Invite students to bring their own examples or links to examples of simple digital stories. (Impose a time limit on examples to ensure reduced complexity: 2 minutes or less.)

Introduce the definition of story

• Use the example you provided, or a student example of your choice.

• Remember: character, challenge, resolution.

• Present at least one example that lacks one or more of the three story elements, and vary the media used.

• Invite reflection: How does a story differ from a report? Provide feedback.

Introduce the narrative arc

• Use the previous simple example.
• Provide the narrative arc for the example: character, challenge, resolution.
• Introduce a more complex example, and vary the media used.
• Invite students to define the more complex example’s narrative arc.
• Invite students to reflect on a narrative they have seen in everyday life, or in popular media. Provide feedback.
• Quiz on the narrative arc definition to embed learning.

Introduce story mapping

• Use the previous more complex example.
• Provide a story map of the example, explaining each numbered plot point.
• Call for extensive practice:

1. Provide a model story map with numbered plot points.
2. Provide at least 3 digital stories of varied complexity, or assign students to find three of their own examples.
3. Have students create story maps of the three examples.
4. Provide feedback as students work on their maps.

• Ask students to share their finished maps.
• Invite reflection by fellow students.
• Provide feedback as needed.

Introduce and explain digital tools

• Provide a list of approved tools for the class.
• Drawing from the previous examples, invite students to reflect on how any tools on the approved list are employed in the examples.
• Invite students to discuss which tools they need practice with, and which they feel proficient using. Provide feedback as needed.
• Establish practice benchmarks for approved digital tools.
• Have students practice with digital tools, aligning practice with the benchmarks.
• Assess students' practice and provide feedback at each benchmark.

Introduce an assignment

• Students must create a digital story using tools on the approved list.
• Impose a time limit on the finished digital story to ensure low to moderate complexity (between 1 and 3 minutes).

Invite feedback and reflection

• Have students share their work with one another.
• Invite students to reflect on others’ work, and on their own.
• Provide both public and private feedback and grade

Is your plan complete?

Compare your finished plan with this digital storytelling checklist.

Rapid deployment/guided discovery/rapid assessment option

This option can be deployed in a single class session, or in a semester-long class schedule, regardless of class subject matter.

• Provide the class with a Twitter discussion hashtag.
• Provide discussion prompts at a minimum of three stages: beginning, middle and end of class (this mirrors beginning, middle and end of story shapes).
• Have students curate their responses with a digital tool such as Storify, and create your own curation.
• Have students share their curation with others; share your own curation.
• Invite reflection.

Assessment-only option: If you simply want to assess learning without teaching digital storytelling skills, eliminate the student curation component. Use comments to gauge changes in students’ learning and/or attitudes as the class progresses.

References

Autumn Leaves (Davis Digital Storytelling Challenge 2008) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJu-hpmXBg

Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwzaxUF0k18

Franklin, J. (1994) Writing For Story. Craft secrets of dramatic nonfiction. New York, NY: Plume/Penguin

J. Cecchini (2012, March 26). James Cameron journeys to Earth’s deepest point [Storify curation]. Retrieved from http://storify.com/thejcgirl/james-cameron-journeys-to-earth-s-deepest-point

Matt’s Story (Digital Storytelling Workshop at Youth UpRising) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCRHTQwXAk

McMillan, Molly (2012, April 7) Dog lovers turn out. The Wichita Eagle. Retrieved from http://www.kansas.com/2012/04/07/2287596/dog-lovers-turn-out-for-sunflower.html

N. Chestnut (2011, April 12) Wichita firefighters rescue dog from swollen creek [Storify curation]. Retrieved from http://storify.com/noahchestnut/wichita-firefighters-rescue-a-dog-from-a-swollen-c?awesm=sfy.co_nVw

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom. New media pathways to literacy, learning and creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Reigeluth, C. M. (1983). Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Inc.

The Princess and the Flightless Bird [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJu-hpmXBg

Visual Portrait of a Story, Dillingham, 2001, with transformation by Ohler, 2003 (2004). [Graphic illustration]. Retrieved from http://www.jasonohler.com/pdfs/storybook11-v2-vps-extracts.pdf

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