1. Telling Your Story

2. Humans: The Storytelling Animal Cognitive scientist Roger Schank states “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” Stories are what students often remember most or last from a course A well-constructed story will connect to different people in different ways An advantage of digital stories: the wording, words as spoken, images, and sound can all serve as keys for remembering.

3. What is a Story (or a Good Story)? This will vary from culture to culture, from time to time. A traditional story is one that resonated enough so that the retelling was requested often enough that the story was remembered over time. “Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate into one compact package information, knowledge, context, and emotion” (Dan Norman, Things That Make Us Smart).

4. Examples of Digital Stories http://telr.osu.edu/storytelling/movies/dassl er-w.htmlhttp://telr.osu.edu/storytelling/movies/dassl er-w.html http://www.storycenter.org/stories/index.ph p?cat=8http://www.storycenter.org/stories/index.ph p?cat=8 https://academictech.doit.wisc.edu/ideas/di gitalstorytelling/exampleshttps://academictech.doit.wisc.edu/ideas/di gitalstorytelling/examples

5. From the novelist E.M. Forster “The queen died and the king died” –those are facts. “The queen died and the king died of a broken heart”—that is a story

6. The Format of (this version of) Digital Stories Short—two to three minutes long Spare—the Center for Digital Storytelling recommends no more than 15 still images, less than a minute of video Well-written and well-crafted (in my opinion, more like poetry than prose)

7. Point of View OR Most Important Thing So what is the most important thing that you want to communicate with your story? It may not be an explicit moral. Being clear about this will shape the telling of the story, what is in the foreground, what is emphasized. Truth may be more important than facts here.

8. Dramatic Question How do we add tension to a story from the beginning to the end of the story? Is there something that the audience wants to know that is not revealed until later. It may be that they want to see what happens to a protagonist in the end (a journey story). It may be that the beginning is so interesting that they just want to see what happens. The dramatic question may not be the one that the audience first thinks that it is.

9. Emotional Content Story is context enriched with emotion. Choosing to tell this story means that it is important to you somehow—there is an emotional meaning (and somehow that needs to be clear). Emotions can be positive and/or negative— a sense of excitement in “Things Small,” a sense of loss in “Home.”

10. Setting the Context Story is context enriched with emotion. For the viewers to connect with your story, they need to understand the context—the who, where, when of the story. However you set the context, it can send the same message as the teller saying “Once upon a time.” From that very specific context and story the viewer can gain something generalizable or universal.

11. Economy Less is more Let the visual and sound carry the written story (not compete with it) AND as you line up your photos/video with your story, you may find that you do not need sentence or half a sentence You may want to set it up so that the viewer is “filling in some of the blanks.”

12. Pacing Stories speed up and slow down, using.. your voice, the soundtrack, panning of photos slowly, or a number of images in a row

13. Use of Your Voice Words on a page are different than words spoken—and richer Tone of voice—as much meaning as the words themselves Change in volume and pitch Pacing and pauses The trick is to practice “just enough,” probably to record twice

14. The Power of the Soundtrack Music can set the tone of a story. Changes in volume during a story can also heighten the emotional content, or alert the viewer about a change that is about to happen. In general, instrumental music works best (not too sets of words entering the brain at the same time). Pay attention to copyright issues— www.freeplaymusic.com is one good site.

15. The Use of Sound Effects This can be the third audio track, after your voice and the soundtrack—the sound of rain, of a train passing, of crowd noise. Think of what else will help in establishing the context, setting the tone, enhancing the words.

16. One Traditional Story Format The protagonist seeks to accomplish a task or goes on a quest. S/he encounters and overcomes obstacles, often three (the Rule of Three). S/he accomplishes the mission and returns home. Often there is some change/learning/ transformation. Think of this as the story of these three days.

17. Storyboard