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14
the 
creative
 educator
Tell your tales; make them true. If they endure, so will you.
—James Keller.
Gather round those roaring campres, picnic tables, or even aondue pot, because the ancient art o storytelling is beingrevived into an emerging communication mode called digitalstorytelling. Stories are as old as people and are moreimportant than ever or our spirits, minds, and humanprogress. Becoming good storytellers gives us personal poweras we guide, motivate, entertain, educate, inspire, andinfuence others through the artul use o story.Designing and communicating inormation requires studentsto deepen their understanding o content while increasing visual, sound, oral language, creativity, and thinking skills. Making meaning out o an experience deepens thecommunication or both the author and the viewers. Theauthor’s narrative voice is the center o all the multimediadecisions. The story’s narrative is rst made into a voiceoverand then all images, sound, music, transitions, and specialeects are organized around unolding this story. Telling stories together about things that really matter has anextraordinary eect on people. Digital media and digitaldistribution to the world community is reshaping the power o oral storytelling, enabling us to unold a highly sensory experience that dances a narrative voice with images, sound,and music into illuminated understandings. What anexperience to incorporate digital storytelling into yourclassroom and guide a new generation into becoming 21st-Century StoryKeepers
™
, knowing their personal narratives will endure or others long ater the res die down!
Take Six:
Elements of Good Storytelling 
 To help increase the quality o student stories, I developed
TakeSix
: Elements o Digital Storytelling. For example, Showingnot Telling is a quality long expected in good writing pieces,and this same element also creates exceptionally good stories as well. However, I want to ocus on two specic elements in thisarticle because they are considered especially essential or goodstorytelling: Living in the Story and Unolding LessonsLearned. I either o these two elements is missing, you likely are viewing a great digital story... but not storytelling.
Living in the Story 
So many digital stories are telling
about 
their topics; evenpersonal ones such as a story about grandma, a pet, or gettinga rst bicycle. Even i told very well, we oten can’t eel theauthor in these
about 
tales. Digital storytelling encouragesauthors to write a very personal emotional connection withthe tale being told. The power o storytelling is not in tellingabout an event or someone else’s lie, but rather in shiting thelens to using the setting, details, and events or telling
 your 
 story with the experience. You may not be a character in the story, but your audienceshould still be able to eel what you eel or how the situationaects you. In
 A Whole New Mind,
Daniel Pink denes story grammar as the “ability to encapsulate, contextualize, andemotionalize inormation, understanding, and experiences or yoursel and others.” Emotionalizing inormation givesimportant “sticking power” in our brains and or our audience. The written narrative or storytelling should be coached as arst-person perspective, unolding the storytelling rom theauthor’s heart, not his or her head.
The Art of DigitalStorytelling
Part I:
Becoming 21st-Century StoryKeepers
™
 
by Bernajean Porter
 
15
the 
creative
 educator
Unfolding a Lesson Learned
Have you ever been with someone who is telling a story andseems to be going on and on and on? You begin to get restless, wondering. . . is there a point here you are trying to make?Good storytelling needs a “spine” to hold the audience’sattention and deliver a timely, memorable ending. Goodstorytelling strives to nd the essence o meaning or value thisperson, experience, or situation made in their lives. The lessonlearned is a kind o moral o the story, such as the ones we ndin airy tales—revealing the wisdom or understandings gainedrom the experience or knowledge. Wrapping up each digitalstorytelling with a lesson learned also gives it depth andmeaning beyond the “what happened” story points.
Finding the Lessons Learned
Frequently an author knows the story he or she wants to tellbut has not made meaning out o it yet. What does my sister’sautism mean to my lie? How do I nd meaning in my lie as aoster child? What do I now know, believe, or understand
 Version 2
 
Dr. Sawyer looked down her narrow pointy nose at me. “So why do you want to teach?”Because I taught Michelle how to tell time when I was in second grade. Because I taught Samanthahow to speak Spanish last summer. Because I don’t know how not to be a teacher.None o these answers would be enough or her. Intimidated by her icy stare, I muttered, “I don’t know.”“Then there is no reason or you to waste your time in this department.” she declared. “You do not havethe disposition o a teacher. Your behavior is no better than that o the children.”Because Hope Ann and I smile in your classroom? Because we giggle and chat with students in thehallways?Anger boiled in my head. I like children. They’re happy! Why is it a crime or me to be, too? “You looklike students, you dress like students, and you act like students. You are not t to be in the classroom.”She turned away rom me with a dismissive tone. Stunned and outraged, I only managed a passive nod.Deeated and humiliated I wandered in a daze, reluctantly arriving at my advisor’s door. I handed himmy second semester registration orm with “Fine Arts” scrawled in my shaky handwriting across the topnext to the word Major. He signed his approval.I lived with my misery every day the ollowing semester; making jewelry, taking photographs, and doingart critiques. My spirit was fat and unconnected. I missed the kids. I missed my dream o making adierence, student by student, through the years.When time came to register or next semester’s classes, I realized that I was wasting my time andambition. I appealed to the head o the education department and won. With renewed conviction, Irejoined the education department. I knew then that I would never again let someone else dictate myuture or take my lie dreams away. My dreams are mine to make true, even when others don’t believein them. I believe, and that is all that matters.
 Version 1
When I was in college, I let the educationdepartment or six months. One o myeducation proessors reused to take me onschool visitations to observe classrooms. Shetold me I looked too much like the kids anddidn’t act my age. Once when I turned in apaper two days late, she reused to grade it. Shepulled me aside and told me that I was nevergoing to be able to become an eective teacherbecause I was too immature. I became angry.She had recommended to the head o theeducation department that I be removed romthe program. Rather than ght with her, Idropped my education major and took up jewelry making and photography. Ater onesemester outside o the education department, Idecided to appeal to the head o the educationdepartment. With a renewed conviction, Irejoined the education department.
about the world rom this experience? It requires the authorto dig deep, refect, and make personal meaning beyond theacts. Finding the lesson learned signicantly changes authorsas well as the experience they create or their audience.Good storytelling is a journey or every author who is diggingdeep into the meaning o their stories or themselves andothers. As part o a digital storytelling week, I worked with Ms.Liza Medina’s middle school class at Ramapos Central Schools,New York. Students were given the task o nding their own visual parallel personal stories to unold while narrating RobertFrost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”. When students began, they struggled to create more than aliteral connection to the poem. When we tried to get them touncover their own emotions and eelings behind theirexperience with Frost’s poem, students clammed up. Aternumerous eorts, Ms. Medina decided to share her own story two dierent ways (see below).
 A 
Take Six 
Story Transformation 
of 00

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