First off, I'm REALLY ready to move into Part III of this book. Though there really are tons of great ideas for teaching story telling, there hasn't been as much practical classroom application as I would hope. However, I did find somethings interesting this week, and here they are:
I liked Campbell's Adventure Diagram. I thought that this pattern is a clear way for students to see how the transformation makes the story and how a story can't exist without it. Though the treasure map didn't seem quite as useful to me, I did like the idea of peaks and valleys. I think that students want to say, this happened and so this happened, and then he changed or learned. However in real life, change usually comes with more of a struggle and "characters" tend to succeed and fail several times before achieving true change.
I also liked the idea of making students identify a "binary opposite" that surrounds their characters' struggle (p. 119). I think it's important for students to know what struggle they are dealing with to truly show how their character transformed.
The thing I think I will definitely take into my classroom is the story spine. I like how the sentence starters create a safety net for creating a storyline. I also like the idea of the class working together to come up with a consequence, and then building the story around that consequence. I also loved the homework assignment of learning to find the story structure by listening to a family member or watching TV.
I agree with you that although this book has been useful in telling us how to create a story, there has been very little practical usage of DST in the classroom. Maybe, if we don't come across it in the coming chapters, there could be a supplemental book written on classroom lessons to use DST.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your explanation of the story spine. It would be a good tool to use for DST.
ReplyDeleteGreat insights. Would like to hear more how you might incorporate one of these ideas, such as the story spine, into your classroom!
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