Module 3: Story Telling and Creating Video

This week we were able to explore the significance of story telling. Story telling is such an important part of human life and I was excited to dive into it over the past 2 weeks.

Describe a meaningful learning experience that started with a story that you heard. What made it impactful for you? What senses did it appeal to? Did you recognize any of the storytelling techniques reviewed this week?

My dad is a big story teller. He often makes his stories a bit too long and reiterates the same point one too many times but he does know how to keep everyone engaged and laughing. He grew up with a mom and dad who were both school teachers. He often told my siblings and I stories about what they were like as teachers. I remember one specific story he told us about how his father, a history teacher, delivered a lesson standing on top of a table. He seemed to be a very engaging and wonderful teacher. When my grandpa passed, a facebook page was created where his former students reflected on memories they had of him. Many of the stories shared matched the ones my dad would tell me. 

I’ve always thought I wanted to be a teacher, but hearing these stories from his past students really solidified in me that being a teacher is exactly what I want to do. I hope to make half of the impact my grandpa made on his students. I think the most wonderful thing about story telling is that I would have never known about the greatness of my grandpas teachings if it weren’t for these stories. The people telling these stories are complete strangers to me, yet there stories impact me greatly. The stories were heartfelt and really made you feel the sorrow these people had after hearing about the passing of my grandpa.

The main technique used in these stories was telling personal stories. Everyone who told stories was able to provide such great detail because it happened to them personally. They also all ended with a positive takeaway. While the stories were sad, due to the nature of the conversation, they all ended looking back on a great memory in a positive way.

While this isn’t about one story in specific, I felt like these stories about my grandpa encompassed the question well.

My Choose your Own Adventure Story on Twine

Below is a screenshot of my Twine story. This was my first time using Twine, and while I found it a little confusing at first it ended up being a fairly simple process. I create a very basic story with limited options but while I was prepping for this I watched a few YouTube videos about Twine and people made some very complex designs! Twine is a very fun program and I hope to learn more skills using it.

https://twinery.org/2/#/stories/e0756d04-edd1-4402-97e6-e2a2c76b5c8b – Here is a link to my interactive story.

In the reading this week, 7 Storytelling Techniques Used by the Most Inspiring TED Presenters, which of the presenters did you find most compelling? What technique(s) did you recognize in their talk?

I found the TED talk by Leslie Morgan Steiner to be quite compelling. One minute into the presentation she had a gun pulled out on stage, making me take a large breath in and wonder where her story was going to lead to. If pulling out a gun on stage isnt an attention grabber, I don’t know what is! She was able to immediately pull me in and I felt a strong curiosity to hear the rest of her story. She used many of the techniques for powerful storytelling. First, she based this TED talk off a personal story. She went into such great detail about meeting her abuser that I felt like I was living a part of the story as well. While telling this story she also created some suspense by starting with the gun out, we knew the story was going to get grim but then she went to talk about meeting a very “nice” man. She went on to tell an engaging and powerful story. Another technique I really appreciated was ending with a positive takeaway. With a story this dark and deep it is powerful to end with a positive take on the topic.  Overall this was a very moving TED talk, it was scary, eye-opening, and well delivered. I was engaged for the entirety of the 15 minutes and truly felt touched by the story. 

What storytelling techniques have you used instinctively and which ones require more work for you? Which techniques will you focus on moving forward? 

I feel like I use techniques such as telling a personal story and creating suspense most instinctively. Most, if not all, stories I tell are personal stories- they are things that have happened to me in the past. I find those stories to be easiest to tell since you were there so you remember all of the details. I also think I create suspense in my stories, often because I will start a story by saying something along the lines of “Did I tell you guys about the time I (…)”, and typically the thing I say is a bit dramatic or has potential to be suspenseful. I guess in a way I am starting at the end of my story and then going back and explaining how it got to that point. Starting in the middle or end and working backward is noted to be a technique of good story telling.

Some of the techniques are struggle with, or require more work are ones such as immersing the audience with photos and words, and building up to a S.T.A.R. moment. I feel that I am not great at immersing my audience because I often don’t use imagery. I don’t often have access to an image of the story, but I also feel like I don’t use many words that create mental images. I would like to work on this because I feel like it is very meaningful. As for the S.T.A.R. moment, I feel like my stories are normally about quite tame topics and don’t necessarily end with a large S.T.A.R. moments. However, maybe I should work on making the conclusion of my story a bit more of a “wow” moment. I will definitely work on creating imagery for my audience as I continue telling stories.