Digital Story Telling

In the class Integrating Technology into Education, we had to create a digital story.  Digital stories are fun way for students to express themselves creatively while strengthening the connections between words and images.  Here is the analysis I produced for class.  The parable I wrote hits home, for sure.

Catherine Lee Vernon

Digital Story Telling Contextual Analysis

EDU 370

June 19, 2015

Writing a Parable for Digital Story Format

Mrs. Vernon’s 10^th Grade ELA Class

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz76xQmao-k

Standards:

CCRA.W.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism

W.9-10.3e e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative.

W.9-10.2f f. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented (e.g., articulating implications or the significance of the topic).

W.9-10.3 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

W.9-10.6 6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Objectives:   

Students will understand and identify the differences and purposes of

parables and allegories.

Students will write their own parable or allegory.

Students will create a digital story from their parable and publish it digitally.

Contextual Analysis:

This is a chance for students to explore their values by writing a parable or allegory that teaches a lesson.  This involves creative story telling that could include a social, historical, or political issue, or any other issue that is important to students.  Students could also identify a personal conflict and relay to the audience the consequences of an action or feeling.  Then they are tasked with giving their story a face when they put it into digital format.  Students typically enjoy playing with technology and free expression, so the digital process may make learning fun while allowing students agency over the outcome.

  

Parables and allegories are often short stories, so the content will feel manageable to students. The lesson will be further enhanced by the integration of technology.  Parables and allegories employ the use of abstract thinking, so to bridge the abstract thought with concrete images and sounds may encourage students to see meaning in images and images in meanings.  Their understanding will go deeper when they ask themselves, “What does (xyz feeling) look like?”  The students still have to use their imaginations to create the story and find suitable pictures, but instead of just surface reading (fake reading) and writing, they must find substantial imagery to accompany their words.  There’s no faking that.