Stuck on Storytelling

Whether it’s a statistics teacher spinning a yarn to hook his students into the day’s lesson, or a language arts teacher using reader’s theater to increase classroom engagement, the use of effective storytelling is the key to the gates of learning. It’s always been that way, whether the year is 1759 or 2421, even though the methods have evolved through the years. We’ve spanned the gamut from the oral tradition to print to film, and now are firmly entrenched in the digital age. The plethora of opportunities in which to tell a story are vast and sometimes overwhelming, but we owe it to this next generation of learners to teach them the collaborative skills of conveying story through multimodal means.

Two readings particularly resonated with me from this week’s reading – the Hicks chapter and the NCTE’s position statement on multimodal literacies. Both firmly support the advent of multimodal literacies for today’s student, and Hicks doesn’t waste time in condemning the traditional approach to slideshow presentations as being “power pointless” (2013). Most teachers wouldn’t argue with Hicks, but it can be daunting to discover alternatives when educators are so overwhelmed with planning, grading, and all of the other tasks involved in teaching today. Power point is a comfortable, if beleaguered old friend that gets the job done, even if it’s snooze-inducing. I loved the readings emphasis on the importance of collaboration, and as an answer to feeling overwhelmed by technology, as educators we should turn over the reins to our students. Providing we give them a clear outline as to what the end product should deliver, students should be allowed the autonomy to research and discover the best program (not power point!) that engages them most. This task causes students to use the higher order thinking verbs from Blooms Taxonomy – creating, evaluating, and analyzing. In addition to the final product/presentation, students could provide an analysis detailing why they chose their specific medium as well as an evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses.

The NCTE article supports this approach in their position statement by reassuring teachers that students “are often more literate in the technical aspects of digital production than many of their teachers.” The article goes on to state, “the definitions of multimodal composing may be written by educators, but they will most likely have first been pioneered by these young people” (2008). By trusting students’ creativity and collaboration skills, teachers will likely be delighted with the new presentation format, and in the process, become students themselves by learning more about the ever-expanding menu of presentation formats that exist.

In honor of Harper Lee who recently passed, here is an example of a multimodal presentation on To Kill a Mockingbird, using Capzles as the presentation format. MS Barnes created this Capzle, which offers real photos with background information that provide viewers with a snapshot of historical events that would have taken place during the setting of the novel. As viewers click through the photographs, a scratchy recording of a sleepy jazz recording plays providing music from the era which evoke a sensory experience and tells a story on its own. I like to think of MS Barnes’ teacher asking for a justification as to why they chose this particular song, as well as the images attached. This presentation style has the possibility to tell a story just as well – if not better – than any narrative a student can write. The NCTE article stressed the importance of “multiple ways of knowing” by using art, music, and drama, among other forms, to tell a story, and that by creating multimodal experiences, students can experience renewed engagement from the over-emphasis on testing and “teaching to the test” so many have experienced (2008).