On most road trips, the “why” is a combination of practical (we need to get somewhere) and creative (what will we find/learn in the process?). We might think about the why of storytelling in similar terms. Why do we tell stories?

We’ll be car-talking about this and other questions in Slack. Check in and share often.

WEEKLY DEADLINE: Monday, February 1 @ 8pm

Read + Chat

This week, we’ll read about storytelling in the classroom, storytelling and the brain, and storytelling as communication. Some questions to consider as you read: How do stories help us — kids included — understand the world? What and how do we learn through stories?

The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter (ch 1-2) by Vivian Gussin-Paley (UAF library eBook — scroll to “Other Formats and Editions” and click “Ebook Central”)

“Telling is Listening” by Ursula K Le Guin in The Wave in the Mind (PDF available in Google Drive)

“How Stories Change the Brain” by Paul Zak in Greater Good Magazine (don’t miss the video embedded in the article)

Any 3 video stories from The Story Center

Daily Create

Complete and post on Twitter at least 4 “Daily Creates” this week.

More about the Daily Create practice here.

Activity

Next week you’ll be creating a digital story using Adobe Spark and writing a “Travel blog” post about what a story needs in order to be good. Briefly, review that assignment as well as a draft of the checklist we’ll use to assess it. Please review the checklist with the eye of a reader/audience. What’s missing from the list? What isn’t clear? What could be expanded? Make changes/suggestions and add your comments. Since we will collaboratively assess the work, it is important that we work together to be as clear as possible about the criteria we’ll use.

Please create an account with Adobe Spark and start playing around with the tool and thinking about the story you want to tell. You may find inspiration from this week’s Story Center videos (though you need not tell a personal story — i.e. fiction is welcome too!).

Weekly Declarations

Please fill out this this form to declare your progress in our explorations together this week.

 

Featured image  by  Jen Theodore  on  Unsplash