Note: please work through the material in Module 1 before beginning this assignment.
For this assignment you'll be telling a story about anything you choose. It can be a fiction or non-fiction story. It can take place in the past, present, or future. It can be happy, sad, exciting, thrilling, or upsetting. It can involve yourself, others, people, or non-people. It can be about animate or inanimate objects. Your story should:
- Connect with people. Your target audience is your Spring, 2021 Storytelling with Data class (students and instructor).
- Be brief. You'll have a maximum of 5 minutes to share your story with the class in its final form. (There is no minimum story length.)
- Tell a story that you haven't told or heard before. Part of what I want you to get out of this assignemnt is practice coming up with new stories. You won't get that unless your story is actually new.
Please upload your assignment as a single .zip file to Slack (in the #your-stories channel). I'll post the videos on YouTube and post links here, so please consider that your story will be made public in deciding what story to tell.
Briefly outline your story:
- Introduce the main idea. What's the "hook" you'll be using to grab your audience at the start of your story?
- Go through the high-level key events in your story. How are you furthering your main idea with each event?
- Conclude. What's your overall goal or point and what message do you want to leave people with?
You should produce a single document containing your outline (as a .txt, .docx, .md, or .pdf file).
Write out your story in roughly one page (single-spaced, size 10 font or larger). Include all major plot points and tell the story in a way you think your audience will find to be compelling.
You should produce a single document containing your story (as a .txt, .docx, .md, or .pdf file).
In whatever format (pencil and paper, sculpture with play-dough, GIFs or memes, food, photographs-- anything!) represent your narrative visually. You are encouraged to be creative, but don't get too abstract; your visual depictions should directly reflect actual story events, key ideas, or plot points. The idea is to represent your story in a way that can be seen using one or more images.
Don't worry about making your "sketches" look perfect. Rather, try to find a way to bolster the key points in your story using visual tools of your preferred form.
You should produce one or more images pasted into a single document (.doc, .md, or .pdf). You can optionally include descriptive text to accompany the images.
Create a video (up to 5 minutes) telling your story. You might want to record a video of yourself speaking, or narrate while showing visual props or sketches, or screencast a powerpoint presentation, etc. You get to choose how you present the story.
You should produce a single video file (formatted as a .mov file).
Please reflect on the assignment by briefly answering the following questions:
- What went well for you? Which parts did you find easy? Which parts of your story are you most happy with?
- What did you have trouble with? What was the hardest part of telling a story? Which parts of your story are you least happy with?
- What sort of feedback would be most helpful to you? For example, what insights from others could most help you improve your story? Or were there particular aspects of the storytelling process that you could use help with? What would help make you a better storyteller?
You should produce a single document containing your answers (as a .txt, .docx, .md, or .pdf file).
Your final submission should comprise a single .zip file containing the following files:
- An outline of your story
- Your written narrative
- A document containing your visual depictions of key elements of your story
- A video file of your story
- A document containing your reflections on the assignment