Digital Storytelling in the Writing Classroom: Engaging Student Authorship, Encouraging Voice, and Communicating Across Difference Dr. Kristian D. Stewart University of Michigan Dearborn
[email protected] Dr. Kristian D. Stewart University of Michigan-Dearborn
[email protected]
Structure of Workshop
• What is a digital story? • Uses and applications • DST in the writing classroom • Being Human Today • Student feedback • Small groups and planning
What is a Digital Story?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww6Xa4hbgpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQdjUNfHA7U&feature=y outu.be
Education K-12
Public and community outreach
University all disciplines
Approach Revise Recognize
Comp 105 Outcomes
Demonstrate Understand Read
writing as a process in composing formal and informal pieces. writing and give useful feedback in response to the writing of others. a range of academic and nonacademic genres and use important academic conventions in writing. knowledge of important rhetorical concepts and apply these to the writing process.
how rhetorical concepts operate. critically a range of texts.
Beyond
go beyond an either/or debate to a more complex rendering of perspectives.
Control
voice, tone, style and other aspects of writing.
Being Human Today Comp 105 course / intro 25 students 16 weeks 2x per week. Diverse population Task: Develop a digital story on what it means to be human today.
Being Human Today Outline ID Kit
Tree of Life
Humans of Comp 105
Story Circle
Drafting full story
Screen DST
Workshop
Storyboarding
Scholarly narrative
Editing & "Murder Your Darlings"
Image safari & software tutorial
Activity 1: Identity Kit • Read: "This is Water" • Read: "Making Conversations" and "The Primacy of Practice"
• Watch: The Danger of a Single Story • Investigate: Making visual arguments • Task: Create an ID kit. Share. Write a reflection.
Activity 2: Humans of Comp 105 Investigate: The Humans of New York website Investigate: Genre, differences between spoken and written language, rhetorical situation, and voice (yours & others).
Task: 1. Interview a colleague with a list of 10 questions. 2. Record or capture interview. Write a blurb that illustrates partner's human essence using their words only (not yours). Take a photo that illustrates the blurb. 3. Upload to the HOC105 archive. Write process reflection.
As an Arab American in the United States after the terrorist attack on 9-11 is somewhat difficult. The Americans stereotype of Arabs truly takes a toll on us because we are discriminated against because of fear and ignorance. Knowing how it feels to be discriminated against, I have been apart of many marches and protests for those who want to be heard like the African Americans or the LGBT community. Being part of those things truly showed me that there is some unity in the States. So, if people just have an open mind and truly take time and listen to what these communities have to say, I believe that this could truly make a difference in the world.
Mohamad Mansour Dearborn, Michigan
One year ago, I could barely speak English. Now, I understand almost everything. I'm very proud of myself because I have the ability to learn fast. One day, I will make those who said you can't do it, ask me how I did it!
Al Salt Al Bahri Dearborn, Michigan.
Everyone is just playing for themselves; they’re all just trying to get somewhere. You realize that by the end of the season, most of the guys won’t be there. Makes it hard to play and to enjoy the experience of being a 17 year old living the dream of playing hockey all the time. When I was in Juniors, all I thought about was playing at the next level. Now that I’m at the next level, I just want to be back in Juniors enjoying myself. If you focus too much on where you’ve been and where you’re going, you’ll miss where you’re at.
-Avery Keith Lincoln Park, Michigan
No matter what, you should not let anybody influence who you are on the inside. You should always be true to yourself, and you should not be brought down by other people. The second you give up an inch of who you really are, people will take a mile.
Mehdi Al-Dhalimi, Dearborn, Michigan
I've always been the youngest, but I'm not seen as the youngest. I've always been seen as the oldest and I've always had to grow up fast. Being able to explore and expand my boundaries helped me a lot because people always underestimate me. They say I'm just a blonde or I'm short, but I can keep up with the speed of the guys. I can body the big girls; I'm smart and intelligent. I've just had to grow up fast. See, I look at life as a journey and along that journey everyone has a story and I think that's so significant. This is just part of my story. -Madison Caswell Warren, Michigan
Activity 3: Listening to Write: The Tree of Life & Story Circle Watch: The Power of Vulnerability
Read: "On the Fine Art of Listening" Read: "Creating Uncomfortable, Safe Spaces"
Read: "Digital Storyteller's Bill of Rights" Understand: Rules. Voice. Everyone has equal time.
Different ways to tell a story...
You Tube
Investigate: Images, Music, and Access
• https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/ music?feature=blog
• Google? • Analyzing photos--can a image replace the idea?
• Citing images and music
Ice breakers
Story circle
Humans of Comp 105
Draft entire story
Investigation Image safari
Source validity Visual literacy
“Murder your Darlings”
Software intro
Edit to script
Storyboarding
Screen DST
Workshop
Process paper
“Murder Your Darlings” • Commas in writing --vital in speaking. Problems in this area means the text is read too quickly. I call this “pacing.” • Mini lessons for writing with clarity and brevity -- adverbs, adjectives-- and what they do to our writing. Are they necessary? With only 400 words? • Colloquial language / versus formal language (writing for specific audiences) -can talk about jargon. • Structure in script writing. 400 words still requires structure. • Paragraphing-- if they write the script in one long chunk, they will read it that way. • Writers control how the audience reads the text through punctuation and paragraphing. • Temporal transitions required for stories.
Ethics and Grading • Digital Storyteller's Bill or Rights.
• No student is forced to "out themselves" or required to leverage emotions for a grade. • Exchange "story" for "composition." • Every script is read before it becomes a DST. • Stories may shift in the process. Students may *want* to heal. They tell the story they want, ultimately. • Rubrics are negotiated and only contain writing concerns.
“Directors”
"I was pleased with how I was able to make all the decisions. I was able to set the tone, emotion, and pace."
versus
“School writers”
"While writing the script, I thought to myself, “Am I explaining myself clearly?” “What is this going to sound like?” or “What pictures am I going to use for this?” Putting everything together in the end answered all those questions and I was finally proud of something I created in an English class."
Improved Writing and Engaged Authorship: • "I am now improving on getting to the point faster in my writing rather than waiting until the end to make a claim." • "I was forced to make my claim very clear in the beginning of the story due to the limited word count. After I made my claim, my support had to be strictly toward my claim. If I did not have a limited word count, I would have gone off the tracks when supporting my thesis statement. This assignment forced me to get to the point and to lose the extra “fluff” that I normally include in my writing."
• "As a writer, I have a purpose as to why I chose to share this specific story, but that purpose is lost if I tell my audience how much I cried for weeks about my cousin and not about how that makes me human."
• "The project as a whole made me pay attention to certain aspects of my story and helped me eliminate extraneous information. I had to shorten my story and leave a lot unsaid. But in that process, I feel like I finished with a much more concise piece of work that I was proud to put my name on."
• "The pauses I needed to put in the digital story all came naturally from the writing, the ordering of the story, and the experiences I was illustrating. Thus, the pauses helped me to position myself somewhat removed from within the text, as a narrator, which was important because my story was about surviving adversity for the sake of others."
• "Creating my digital story gave me a platform in which I could finally share my story, from my point of view, not the media’s, and have it mean something to me."
On Being Human: A Humanizing Pedagogy • "The thing I was most surprised to hear was all the discrimination that a lot of the kids in our class have dealt with. Being a White American, I have little experience with what that is like to go through, so it was eye opening to hear what experiences people my age have already gone through. All of these stories have impacted me and my opinion on what it means to be human."
• "I absolutely loved the theme of “What does it mean to be human?” because it wasn’t some useless prompt a professor just chose from random. There's actual meaning to it, which makes it something people can get behind and enjoy writing about. Which goes all the way back to the “Humans of Comp 105” project that we did, and describing someone else as if you were them. Looking back on all those projects, you find that people experience all sort of struggles of pain and happiness, and just trying to be true to yourself. Therefore, in a cumulative manner, being human is about experiencing these emotions and learning from them, and being grateful that you get to experience them."
• "I have changed the way I view my colleagues. I notice that I can make quick judgements about people based on the mask they wear, and I should not do this. I have found that the people around me have stories that have made them who they are, and each person is inherently good. There is kindness and suffering deep within all of us that has created us into the humans that we are. For me to make a fast judgement toward somebody based on their surface-level qualities is not only unfair, but it is wrong. I have found that I am more judgmental than I would like to be." • "This assignment allowed me to see the world through somebody else’s eyes. I could break through the walls of judgment I have built and see each person for who they truly are. This assignment taught me much more than writing skills. It taught me how I should view others."
• "I felt as though the safe space we worked on creating all semester in our classroom was really working its magic when I shared my story. I really enjoyed being listened to and not judged. Nothing else has ever meant so much to me and nothing else has ever made me feel so confident in expressing myself because of the hard work of my peers and my professor in ensuring that our classroom was indeed a safe space in which I could reach out to find closure."
How’s Your Water?
• "Because of this class, I learned just how important it is that we do not judge each other based on stereotypes and mass hysteria implemented by the media, but that we take the time out of our day to educate ourselves about the people that surround us." • "I have learned so much about my colleagues and I feel as though I have gotten closer with them after every class period concludes."
• "The main theme that really sticks out from the class is that most of us seem alone and think that being alone is how we are. The truth is that a lot of other people feel this way and knowing that now, I don’t feel very alone anymore." • "I, myself, do not have very heavy water that I swim in, but other people have some very heavy water."
Digital Storytelling as Intellectual Enterprise • Critical media literacy , digital writing, & visual literacy. • Words matter. Less is more. Students learn to write for clarity and brevity. • Developing argument – going “beyond” & gathering sources.
• Grammar and sentence level concerns (diction & syntax). • Voice—students “story” themselves. Their experiences become the curriculum. • The art and shapes of stories as "craft." • Socializing & humanizing pedagogy.
Reflection I feel as if I was scaling a mountain, going up level by level through each mini project, and now I’m here. I’m at the top ready to share my story and be proud of the time and effort I put into creating something worthwhile. As a freshman in my second semester, I believe this was a true, modern learning experience and expect nothing less for the next few years. Thanks, Kristi, for giving us this opportunity in what would’ve been just another Comp class.
Critical and Meaningful Reflection "Apart from improving my writing skills, since this was a digital storytelling assignment, it also improved my persuasion skills. I had to persuade the audience to feel the emotions I felt by the use of my voice and the pictures that went behind that voice. Doing so was a tedious process because I had to record my voice multiple times in order for it to sound appropriate with the emotion I was trying to invoke. Behind my voice were the pictures that took me almost a decade to find. And just like my voice, the pictures needed to carry the same emotions. Having a good combination of this is what helped me portray the theme of my story to the audience."
"The Impact of Teachers"
Questions and Planning: Want to talk more? Wish to collaborate?
Kristi at
[email protected]
