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Engaging student voice and fulfilling curriculum goals with digital stories
Digital storytelling is a recent achievement that utilizes the latest developments in digital video cameras, scanners, personal computers and software. In digital storytelling projects, learners collaboratively videotape, edit, and create digital stories, which incorporate multiple media, and deal with issues of point-of-view, context, and communication of ideas. Such projects implemented in out-of-school time have generally been successful at fostering literacy skills while positively influencing youth identity development (Atchley, 2000; Davis, 2004; Hull & Greeno, 2006; Lambert, 2002). Unlike many of the other implementations of digital storytelling, this study was conducted within a formal school, in a context where digital storytelling was used in part to fulfill curriculum goals. This research project was integrated into the classroom curriculum and took place throughout the 2005-2006 school year. Students created a series of three digital stories over the course of several months implementing creative, narrative and persuasive writing. These digital stories utilized the grade level curriculum, integrating communication arts, social studies, science, and technology. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the tensions between students developing and engaging their personal voice in digital storytelling, and achieving school-based curricular goals.
Theoretical FrameworkWertsch's (1998) distinction between mastery and appropriation is useful in distinguishing different kinds of outcomes in the particular kind of cognitive apprenticeship attempted in this study. In any school literacy curriculum, teachers attempt to design and foster a learning environment in which students master the forms of literacy involved, and they also hope the students will appropriate it. In Wertsch's use, individuals develops mastery of cultural tools when they come to know how to use the tools with fluency; individuals appropriate tools when they "make the tool their own." Making a tool one's own involves a positive emotional stance toward that tool, and an interest in using and transforming the tool in multiple contexts beyond that in which it was originally encountered. Sometimes, students might master a tool to some degree without appropriating it, and vice versa. For instance, students might learn how to use certain literacy practices in the sense of mastery in the classroom, but not appropriate them for their free-choice use outside the classroom. On the other hand, students might appropriate uses of communication techniques without mastering all their fluent practices. Mastery of some tools and practices might drive appropriation, and appropriation might drive mastery (Polman, 2006a).
In this study, three particular genres (Bakhtin, 1981) of literacy tools became important: persuasive essays and narrative writing as described in the prescribed seventh grade curriculum of the district, and digital storytelling as it has been developed outside of school as an expressive medium. As Bakhtin (1986) has pointed out, language genres have certain structural forms and conventions. The genres of persuasive essays, narrative writing, and digital storytelling as they are generally practiced have several things in common: all take a perspective and involve the teller in using their voice to express that perspective, and all result in a "message". But unlike persuasive essays, narrative writing and digital storytelling usually involve explicitly narrative conventions and forms, including the appearance and development of characters, and sequences of actions where one thing leads to another (Bruner, 2002, 2003). Persuasive essays do not necessarily have narrative sequence and characters.
Finally, the notion of "voice" is important to understanding the appropriation of the forms of literacy involved in this study. In order to master persuasive essays and narratives as forms of literacy, learners must develop their own voice. As Bakhtin has pointed out, however, "the word in language is half someone else's. It becomes 'one's own' only when the speaker populates it with his own intentions, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intentions" (1981, p. 293). The extent to which the learners in classrooms use their own personal voices, as opposed to parroting the words of others and not integrating their own intentions and perspectives, was an important indicator of both mastery and appropriation in this research context.
Research Context, Methods, and Data Sources
The study took place in a large metropolitan area in the Midwest of the United States. The public school that participated in the study had kindergarten through eighth grade students in self-contained classrooms. In each classroom, teachers taught all of the core curriculum classes except art, music, and physical education which were taught outside of the regular classroom. Forty-one seventh grade students came to the computer lab almost daily over a five-month period, during which they used Apple Macintosh computers and iMovie software to create digital stories. Kulla-Abbott was the primary researcher and was also the Instructional Technology Specialist (ITS) for the school and taught classes in the computer lab to the entire student population of the school. She collaborated with the classroom teachers, Mrs. A and Mr. Z, and instructed students in the computer lab on the particular software and digital storytelling process. The amount of time students spent in the lab for instruction and compilation of digital stories ranged from 40 to 90 minutes per day and totaled approximately 28.5 hours to create the first project over 22 days during November and December 2005, 15.33 hours for the second project spanning 18 days in January - February 2006 and 12 to 14 hours for the third project over 16 days in February - March 2006. Classwork conducted outside of the lab was not documented for this study.
All students participating in the research study responded to the ITS via email as needed throughout the project and, specifically, with answers to reflective questions after each project. Three groups, with a combined total of six students, were selected and videotaped weekly in the computer lab for the duration of the research. These students were also interviewed after each project. The groups were selected near the beginning of the first project in consultation with the teachers, based on the students' willingness to participate in the interview portion of the study. The group members were purposefully selected to represent a sample proportionate to the classrooms as a whole based on gender and academic achievement, including students with IEPs, but sometimes the group configurations were not 50% boys and 50% girls.
The research reported on here comes out of a larger dissertation study (Kulla-Abbott, 2006). In this paper, we focus on how students engage and develop their voices, at the same time they are participating in activities designed to fulfill curriculum goals aimed at developing literacy. This qualitative study utilized the following data sources: observational field notes, videotapes of classroom activity, digital video artifacts created by students, reflections, emails, and interviews. Field notes from observations were processed on a daily basis and selected class sessions were videotaped for analysis purposes. These data were coded thematically, and used to assemble case studies of student groups' and individual children's experiences of utilizing digital storytelling to fulfill curriculum goals.
Background and Overview of Curriculum
Kulla-Abbott (2005) discovered in the course of a pilot study during the 2004-2005 school year, that one pitfall in using multimedia products based on the digital storytelling model for social studies and communication arts was students creating "video essays" rather than digital stories with narrative elements that sequenced connected actions. In the pilot project, students created Roman emperor biographies, environmental persuasive essays, and video representations of the laws of physics; these generally did not contain a dramatic question, emotional impact or a story sequence (Lambert, 2002). Teaching the fundamentals of writing using the middle school curriculum, such as the five-paragraph or persuasive essay, can produce a rigid and mechanical product. In order to transform "telling" about a topic in essay form without developing and using their own voices, Kulla-Abbott hoped students could develop their writing skills by incorporating voice and emotion into a story that was more engaging for the writer and the audience. The teachers, after discussion of this result with Kulla-Abbott, decided to incorporate a personal story the following school year to help students find their voices.
The six traits of effective writing provided a structure for students to begin their writing, to revise their writing, and to assess their own and others' writing (Kemper, Sebranek & Meyer, 2006). Culham (2003) expanded the six traits described as organization, ideas and content, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions by adding a presentation component. These seven traits correlate to the seven elements of digital storytelling, which are point-of-view, dramatic question (story structure), emotional content, voice, sound track, economy (organization) and pacing (Lambert, 2002). The primary difference that digital storytelling affords is the use of images to enhance the story. Figure 1 contains a brief explanation of the writing traits and the corresponding digital storytelling elements. For instance, the writing trait of organization showcases the central theme or idea (Culham, 2003). This relates to the digital storytelling element of point-of-view, which is the "point" of the story (Lambert, 2002).
Figure 1: Correlations between writing traits and elements of Digital Storytelling
Kajder's (2004) six steps of digital storytelling were utilized during the projects: what to say, artifact search, storyboarding, revision, construction and screening. For the initial digital storytelling project during the 2005-2006 school year, students worked in groups of two or three creating movies incorporating a Greek god or goddess, whose character traits remained the same as in the original Greek myths, but who had been transplanted to a modern-day American school and had to handle problems that teenagers face. Students worked individually on their second project, a personal story. On the third digital story about environmental topics, students chose to work individually or with a partner since they were familiar with the process, equipment, and software.
During the first project students learned the components necessary in creating a storyboard, began to develop perspective about who was telling the story and why, acquired understanding about how to convert a narrative text into a script, and learned how to manipulate the technologies to create digital stories. Once this initial stage of learning the processes and technologies were achieved, the students were able to internalize them and the technologies became transparent. Although subtleties of the technologies continued to develop through subsequent digital story creation, the primary focus shifted to the development of the story.
In the second round of projects, students in general embraced the creation of their personal stories. First, they wrote their initial ideas, then they looked for pictures at home to visually represent their story, which led to about 90% of them changing their stories. Through the process of modeling, coaching, articulation, reflection, and exploration while creating personal stories, students came to understand perspective in a new way (Atchley, 2000; Collins et al., 1990, p. 481-482; Lambert, 2002; Porter, 2004). As authors it was up to the students to determine what they were trying to convey to the audience and from what perspective they told their story. As a result of the process of editing images and text to convey a story, students gained insight into who was telling the story, why they were telling it, and who they were telling it to. The students developed understanding of narrative structures embedded with cognitive, social, and emotional functions (Polman, 2004).
All the stories created by students in this second phase of the project were categorized using Lambert's (2002) schema of digital story types. Overall, 40% of the 41 stories in this stage of the study were character stories. Half of those were about pets and half were about family and friends. Ten adventure stories about vacations or travel comprised 25% of the movie topics. Eight (20%) were accomplishment stories about sports, all but one written by the boys. Two stories or 5% were written in each of these three categories: memorials, a place in their life, and life lessons learned. Some stories fell into more than one category as seen in Figure 2. For instance, an accomplishment story about sports was also about a meaningful relationship with a mentor, or a meaningful relationship story was also a memorial with a life lesson learned. Figure 2 also shows the comparison of story topics of the boys and girls. Fifty-percent of the boys wrote about family, 33% wrote about sports accomplishments, 10% wrote about pets, and the remainder wrote about life lessons. Over 50% of the girls wrote about relationships and adventures, including trips with family and friends, but in contrast, 30% wrote about pets.
Figure 2: Personal story topics
The third digital storytelling project of the year was based on environmental issues, which is part of the seventh grade science curriculum that Mrs. A teaches to both classes. Before the project, Mrs. A commented on why she implemented this strategy:
[I wanted to address science] content, persuasive writing, and to make students more aware of their effect on the environment because typically we score really, really, really poorly in that section [on the state test]. Our kids know that pollution is bad. They know that we should recycle. They know all of those things, but they don't really have the full impact of it. So for me to get that impact in a relatively short period of time, with exposure to a whole lot of topics, is very, very valuable. My goal for DS [digital storytelling] is that the students become more involved in their story telling. Hopefully through DS there will be more focus on the detail or emotion[al] involvement resulting in a higher quality story.
Our analyses of the student cases revealed that all three digital storytelling projects contributed to the fulfillment of literacy curriculum goals related to expressive fluency. The second project, the personal story, aided most strongly the development of student voice. Student voice and curriculum goals came into tension in the third project, where the curriculum was aimed at persuasive writing and science, and the products had less narrative form. We will now focus on one student's cases in the second and third projects. Betty (a pseudonym, as are all student and teacher names used in this report) worked on a memorial story about family, and later wrote a persuasive essay that was transformed into an environmental science multimedia presentation about Styrofoam.
Betty's Personal Story: Writing with Emotion and Multiple Aspects of Voice
Our first case takes place in the second digital storytelling project of the year. As described above, this project was a personal story from students' own lives that they each worked on individually. One focus of the second project was to evoke an emotional quality that had not been expressed in their previous storytelling, which relates to voice (Culham, 2003; Lambert, 2002; Wertsch, 1991). Betty had worked on the first digital storytelling project of the year with Geri, and they told the fantastical story about the god Apollo experiencing time on Earth as a high school student. Geri had taken the controlling interest by writing and directing the story about Apollo, so Betty did not know what to do at first when the personal story was assigned. After completing her personal story, she told Kulla-Abbott about her thought processes on deciding upon a topic:
I did a story about my Grandma and it was about how important she was to me. She smoked and she died and all of the stuff that she's missed from it since then. It was my big (point), what I was trying to get to everybody was not to smoke because you'll miss a lot of stuff like you'll get lung cancer and die.
Betty submitted the first draft of her personal story about her Grandmother on the second day after writing for 40 minutes in the lab (the student's misspellings are retained):
I had a grandma that was the best. My mom and dad would go to work everyday, and I would go to her house. She would tech me how to cook. She was the best cook ever. She made the best pasta ever! Every other food she cooded was goog, don't get me wrong, but her pasta waas they best! My grandma would LOVE to scare people! She would always watch scary mories and then scare people after. One time my dad and his 3 sibblings were watching a scary movie with my grandma and then they noticed she disaperied. They thought nothing of it. They thought that she may have gone to the bathroom or something, but that was not it. They herd a scraching at the door and no one wanted to go get it. Well finally my dad went to go get the door, my drandma was out side at the door with a pantiehoes on her head to make it look like her face is disformed.
Kulla-Abbott wrote notes on her paper to inspire her to think about the anecdotes that she had chosen to tell about her grandmother and what other memories that she might share: "What did your dad do? Who told you this story, your grandma, your dad, or were you there? How did you feel? Tell me more about other memories!"
After a week had transpired, Betty had added another paragraph to her story, made corrections on her spelling and shared it with part of the class on Day 8 during a story circle. This was their first experience with a story circle and students were encouraged to give feedback to each other in a constructive manner. Molly read Betty's story aloud because Betty's voice had not yet recovered from an illness (misspellings and grammatical errors are retained in the following as well):
My grandma was the best. My mom and dad would go to work every day, and I would go to her house. She would teach me how to cook. She was the best cook ever. And one of my favorite things she made was pasta. Every other food she cooked was good, don't get me wrong but her pasta was the best!
My grandma would LOVE to scare people! She would always watch scary movies with my grandma and then scare people after. My dad told me a story of when he was about 7 or 8, he and his 3 siblings and my grandma were watching a movie. Then they noticed she disappeared, they didn't think anything of it. They thought that she was going to the bathroom or something, but that was not it. They herd a scratching at the door and no one wanted to get the door. Then finally my dad went to go get the door, my grandma was outside at the door with pantyhose on her head to make it look like her face was deformed.
But one day on August 12 1999 she died. She died of cancer, she smoked all the time and well that is how she got the cancer in the first place. She was great I don't remember much because she died when I was about 7 or 8. But there was 1 memory that I know I will never forget. We used to live with them for a wile because we were looking for a house, well I would go up to the kitchen every morning and sit with her and eat Frosted Flakes. We would look out the big window and watch the leaves "dance" around in a circle out side. She would always tell me they were dancing for me. Even though I don't remember a lot of memory's the ones that I do remember I will always remember them. She probable would be alive right now if It she never would have smoked and she would be able to see every one grow up. Because of her death she has missed a lot of things, like me and my family growing up, my 3 cousins have gotten married, and my cousins has 2 little daughters, Kalyn and Julia. We all miss her so much and we will never forget her. Never.
Robert and Sam agreed that it was "real good." Robert continued, "It was touching. I mean my grandpa died the day I was born so I get the feeling of it." Molly commented that it was good because of "the emotion that she put into it." Everyone began to reminisce about his or her grandparents, so Kulla-Abbott asked a question:
TKA: Did her dying from smoking give you an opinion about whether you are going to smoke or not?
Betty: Yeah. I'm not going to.
TKA: Okay. Because of that?
Betty: Yes. Because she'd still be alive probably right now if it wasn't for that and she could see everybody growing up.
TKA: Well I think that's a really big lesson. You almost said it, but you didn't completely say it. So if she hadn't smoked...What I learned most from my grandmother is if she hadn't smoked she wouldn't...you have it there, but you may want to change the wording a little bit so that we know that she taught you that.
After the project, Betty reflected about the impact of the story circle on her writing. "The story circle helped me with ideas that I would never have thought of and my grammar and stuff. I liked helping other people too."
Betty submitted her third draft two days later. The only thing that had changed was an additional paragraph at the end that described how her grandfather was coping with his loss:
My grandpa has always missed her and lived by himself until this year, he married one of his best friends growing up. He is much happier. And even though she is not my grandma, she still is part of the family and we all love her.
Kulla-Abbott suggested again to her that "you might want to put a closing about what your grandmother has taught you about not smoking and sticking around."
Betty's pictures were powerful and enhanced her story. Kulla-Abbott asked her to describe how she selected her pictures, and she responded:
Well I thought of my story mostly. I had to take out the part out with her scaring, like she loved to scare people because I had no pictures of her scaring people. And I thought but like some of the pictures that I did was the ones that mostly brought back memories. Like when I looked at them I was like, "That's the one. I remember that." Or this is a good picture of her. It was mostly of my story, what it was mostly about.
She dropped the part about her Grandmother scaring people since she did not have any pictures to support it. She also decided on a stronger ending which conveyed her feelings about missing her grandmother and left out the part about her grandfather. Her actual movie script reflected these changes and incorporated wonderful anecdotes:
My Grandma [final script]
My grandma was the best. My mom and dad would go to work every day, and I would go to her house. She taught me how to cook. She was the best cook ever. And one of my favorite things she made was pasta. Every other food was good, don't get me wrong but her pasta was the best!
No matter what she could put a smile on anybody's face. We all loved her. But one day on August 12 1999 she died. She died of cancer, she smoked all the time and well that's the reason she got the cancer in the first place. She was great. I don't remember much because she died when I was about 7 or 8. But there was one memory that I know I will never forget.
We used to live with them for awhile because we were looking for a house, well I would go up to the kitchen every morning and sit down with her and eat Frosted Flakes. We would look out the big window and watch the leaves "dance" around in a circle outside. She would always tell me they were dancing for me. Even though I don't remember a lot of memory's the ones that I do remember I will always remember them.
Her family misses her very much and wishes she would have never, ever smoked, then she could have seen her family grow up. She also hasn't seen my two cousins, Kalyn and Julia or my two cousins' graduations. She died seven months after Mike was born so she didn't know him very well. We all miss her very, very much and we will never ever forget her.
Case 1 Redux: Voice and Literacy Curriculum Aligned in Betty's Personal Story
These anecdotes showed Betty's developing mastery of a personal "voice" throughout her story as relates to aspects of Culham's writing traits (2003) and Lambert's digital storytelling elements (2002) in Figure 1 above. In paragraph one, Betty's script exhibits logical organization and clear point of view when she introduces her Grandmother as her caregiver with wonderful food memories of "the best cook ever." In the second paragraph, Betty develops ideas and content with more heartwarming descriptors of her Grandmother's humor and the love her family felt for her. The dramatic question is a poignant observation, "She died of cancer, she smoked all the time and well that's the reason she got the cancer in the first place." The third paragraph gives presentation through word choices of a memorable anecdote about watching the leaves dance. Sharing this one memory filled with emotional content involves the audience in a little girl's experience. Economy of words is demonstrated through the use of this emotional anecdote, and through the honing of a more focused text through multiple drafts. Fluency, word choice, and the "point" of the story are exemplified in the last paragraph, when Betty says. "Her family misses her very much and wishes she would have never, ever smoked, then she could have seen her family grow up." Pacing is also an integral part of the presentation incorporated into the narration.
This kind of personal story differed in important ways from the first project in which students made up fantasy stories about Greek gods transplanted to American schools. In this second digital storytelling project, Betty picked an important topic that mattered to her and wove it through her personal story. She had selected a universal theme, a lesson learned from someone very important to her that was no longer with us. Her mother and father cried when they saw the movie. Betty described her own feelings after seeing her work:
When I was putting it all together I was mostly thinking about [how] I need to get this done and everything, but when I watched it on the big screen, I was like 'Wow, I really miss her.'
Betty told Kulla-Abbott that she did more work in the second project, and reflected that she was "better at computers":
At first I didn't know what to do really, like when I was working with Geri on the Roman one and also I didn't really like that subject, like I wasn't really into gods and goddesses and all that, but she was. So I kind of let her do most of the work. With this one, I...really got into it and I put all my feelings and I did my best.
Being "into" the topic really inspired Betty to want to do her best and learn more about creating a digital story and tell a story that mattered to her. In her 1-minute and 45-second movie she had included title, credits, transitions, effects, and music even though she was absent two days during the final compilation. Thus, Betty's appropriation of the notion of telling this story drove her mastery of the multimedia literacy practices employed.
She went on to describe what she learned and how she learned it.
I learned a lot from this one, a lot more than from the other one. I learned how to work the iMovie by myself. April was sitting right next to me, and she's really good with computers. I knew some of the stuff, but like the music, I needed help all the way with that. I was like, "What do you do?" And she showed me like step-by-step of everything.
It was helpful that Betty had someone to assist her with her knowledge gaps. This type of peer help also reinforces the learning of the "teaching" student and allows for collaboration even when students are working independently. Betty went on to describe getting help in other areas, but still felt that she had internalized the knowledge:
And I asked her like questions [about pictures], and she'd show me and I'd remember them for the next pictures that I'd do. And this time I had to do it myself and I also figured it out myself sometimes because April would be working on hers and you'd be working with someone else, so I kind of had to do it myself and see, but I'd save it before, just in case.
Betty knew that the best way to add new knowledge was to save her project the way she liked it before exploring. She also felt "that you have to be able to be ready to learn. iMovies are hard if you don't pay attention. I learned to edit the work good or else the story will be bad." She expressed that it was challenging but worthwhile for her to create the music and learn so many different things while transforming her story into a multimedia movie.
I know more about computers and the whole writing process like helped me. I think it's fun just all of it, like putting it together and knowing that you made it and that you can be proud of it. And I like making the music. That was fun 'cause I like music and stuff. Putting it all together was cool and then like having it in your story, in your movie, it made the movie even better.
Betty's story was a character story about the meaningful relationship she had with her grandmother. It was also a memorial story through which she learned a lesson about life and not smoking (Lambert, 2002). Betty began this project with a perception that she was not a "computer person." She had deferred to her partner on the first project, but had found her motivation in her personal story. Being able to express her feelings about her grandmother was her inspiration. The technology project became a means to honor that memory and share her story. Betty positioned herself next to her friends and asked them for help when she needed it. She communicated a great sense of accomplishment with her storytelling abilities and technological gains and wanted to do it again (Goodman, 2003).
Betty's Digital Persuasive Essay on an Environmental Issue: Struggling to Develop and Use One's Voice
Mrs. A began the third digital storytelling project by telling a story using a made-up situation about a day in the life of a teenager. The scenario illustrated ways that we use and misuse resources in a typical day. For instance: taking a long shower, water wasted in the bathroom by letting the water run, using chemical substances like hair products, warming the car, grabbing coffee from the store in a Styrofoam cup, wasted paper from a pop quiz, Styrofoam plates at lunch, wasted food at lunch, and the trash generated at that lunch. During the guided discussion that followed, the class talked about environmental issues, food chains as a concept review, and speculated about what might happen if you interrupt the food chain. They made a list of environmental topics from which student groups made their project topic selections: rainforest, air pollution, oil/gas waste, water waste, animal testing, Styrofoam, recycling, extinction, littering, deforestation, chemical pollution and oil spills.
By telling a story about one person's typical day in this way, Mrs. A got students to think about our environmental impact and they came up with twelve topics as possibilities on which to focus.
Betty, Leah, Kelly, and April comprised a group who were representative of the tensions encountered in this class around being persuasive about a science topic and using voice. They researched factual content about Styrofoam pollution, learning about this topic in order to create a story about it. Betty explained how their group members helped decide what would be included in the script:
We picked out the main topics. We searched for "Styrofoam" and then we found the polystyrene and we started researching more on that and then we learned about the marine animals and stuff. We copy and pasted our research and then sent it to April. And then the one day we all decided which ones were the best to go into the script, the ones that would actually get your attention and the one's that actually meant something and then we put them into the script.
When conducting research on the Web, it was surprising to Kulla-Abbott that they did not seem to be finding substantial research since there were four people searching the web on four computers. Maybe their search criterion was not specific enough or maybe the words were misspelled. In any case, Kelly and Leah looked like they were reading information on their computers because of the intense looks on their faces. April and Betty were much more chatty:
April: Why don't you just type it in up there?
Betty: Because I want to go right here. I'm going to DogPile.
April: I've never been there.
Betty: Neither have I. I'll try it.
All of the girls continued to work independently on their own computer. Leah and Kelly talked about what they were finding while Betty found a link to "see the house made out of Styrofoam." April and Betty's conversation went from boys to bowling in gym, or whether they liked someone's haircut, and how hungry they were. They even joked about what they would like the next project to be, while Leah and Kelly worked quietly. Betty said to April: "Why can't we do an iMovie on our favorite rapper?" April replied: "Like Nelly?" They both started singing.
April: That's cute.
Betty: I know he's cute.
Leah: What's for lunch today?
Betty: I don't know.
Betty: [to Kelly] Do you know what's for lunch?
April: I mean seriously, do you ever even put your food on the plate?
Thinking about the Styrofoam plates in the cafeteria made them think about lunch, which then brought them back to their use of the Styrofoam plate that their lunch was served on. This group's collaborative style worked well for them. Even though all of them were not involved to the same degree at all times, they all had input and allowed each other to wax and wane in their participation without name calling, coercion, or frustration. This acceptance fostered collaboration and critical friendship through supportive feedback and input (Gordon, 1999). Kelly and Leah took notes from the Internet on their groups' research outline, following a template provided by their teacher:
Persuasive Outline
I. Introduction
A. Catchy statement
B. Thesis statement
C. Conclusive statement
II. Body marine animals/ dolphins and whales [Leah]
A. Detail: Since Styrofoam is so buoyant; it is easily carried to different areas by wind and water. Styrofoam causes the same problems that plastics do to the marine environment. Styrofoam cups and food containers can easily be broken up into little pieces and then carried into the ocean. Marine animals cannot distinguish the difference between a piece of Styrofoam and floating plankton or fish eggs, so they eat up the scraps. This can cause digestive tract diseases and intestinal blockages.
B. Detail: Angular pieces of floating Styrofoam can cause serious injuries to animals that gulp down their prey, such as dolphins or whales. Blockages and stomach ulcers result from ingesting this careless waste.
C. Example- Surveys conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimate between 100,000 and 500,000 pieces of marine debris float in BC's coastal waters. 77% of that debris is Styrofoam. That is over 400,000.
III. Health problems [Kelly]
A. Styrofoam has also been known to cause health problems for people. Polystyrene contains a neurotoxin, which can cause fatigue and also chromosomal disorders. It has only been recently discovered that polystyrene can sometimes stick to the food you eat. In 1991, a group reported that volatile styrene monomers were detected in eggshells stored in polystyrene containers at supermarkets. Egg dishes cooked with these contaminated eggs contained seven times more ethylbenzene and styrene than those prepared from fresh farm eggs that had not been packaged in Styrofoam. Researchers suspect that the volatile compounds can migrate through the porous shells into the whites and yolk of the egg.
B. Detail: Years ago people found out that polystyrene caused cancer. Many different types of food can break down the polystyrene; so then you would eat it and get sick with cancer or something very similar to that. Such foods are: food containing vitamin A or vitamin D, dairy products, or heated foods. This is basically all types of food. Since many school children have been eating off of Styrofoam plates from first grade to the present, then cancer is very threatening!
C. Example: This year about 552,200 Americans are expected to die of cancer-more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second most popular death and about 1 in 4 death is from cancer.
IV. Landfills [Kelly]
A. Detail: Styrofoam is also bad for the environment mainly because it is basically non-biodegradable. A Styrofoam cup has a life span of about 400 years, and in the United States, we use so much of it. I read that we use enough Styrofoam cups in one year to encircle the Earth 436 times. Just imagine how much space they can take up in landfills... especially if they're going to be there for 400 years!
V. Conclusion
A. Restate thesis
B. Summarize main points
C. Reemphasize main idea in third person
April transformed Kelly and Leah's notes into the following script (the student's misspellings are retained):
Styrofoam Pollution Script
Styrofoam is harmful to both the environment and the marine animals. Since Styrofoam is so buoyant it is easily carried to different areas by wind and water. Therefore making it dangerous for the marine animals. Styrofoam causes the same problems that plastics do to the marine environment. Styrofoam cup and trays can easily be carried into the ocean and other waters. Marine animals cannot distinguish the difference between a piece of Styrofoam and floating plankton or fish eggs. SO they eat the Styrofoam. This can cause digestive tract diseases and intestinal blockages. Angular pieces of floating Styrofoam can cause serious injuries to animals that gulp down their prey, such as dolphins or whales. Blockages and stomach ulcers result from ingesting this careless waste Surveys conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimate between 100,000 and 500,000 pieces of marine debris float in BC's coastal waters. 77% of that debris is Styrofoam. That is over 400,00. Styrofoam has other harms too. Styrofoam has also been known to cause health problems in humans as well. Polystyrene contains a neurotoxin, which can cause fatigue and also chromosomal disorders. It has only been recently discovered that polystyrene can sometimes stick to the food you eat. In 1991, a group reported that volatile styrene monomers were detected in eggshells stored in polystyrene containers at supermarkets. Egg dishes cooked with these contaminated eggs contained seven times more ethyl benzene and styrene than those prepared from fresh farm eggs that had not been packaged in Styrofoam. Researchers suspect that the volatile compounds can migrate through the porous shells into the whites and yolk of the egg. Years ago people found out that polystyrene caused cancer. Many different types of food can break down the polystyrene; so then you would eat it and get sick with cancer or something very similar to that. Such foods are: food containing vitamin A or vitamin D, dairy products, or heated foods. This is basically all types of food. Since many school children have been eating off of Styrofoam plates from first grade to the present, then cancer is very threatening! This year about 552,200 Americans are expected to die of cancer, which is more then 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the 2nd most popular death and about 1 in 4 deaths is caused from cancer. Styrofoam also is bad for the environment because it is non- biodegradable. (Which means that it really cannot dissolve.) A Styrofoam cup can last around the time of 400 years, and think of how many schools and families use Styrofoam cups. In the United States we use the most Styrofoam than any other country! While recycling and reuse to grow in popularity, mostly the entire waist goes to landfills. Mostly everyone assumes that the trash that they through away desinagrates. The truth is that Styrofoam takes 400 years to designate.
Case 2 Redux: Voice and Curriculum in Tension, but Multimodal Literacy Advanced
Although their process of revision incorporated more effective persuasiveness into their movie, it is worth noting that the students' text was still not really a narrative with a sequence of events, so much as a pure persuasive essay. This may have detracted from the emotion and voice. Betty noted that involving emotion about this particular topic was difficult for her compared to her personal story. For Betty, writing about her feelings was a key component for her writing involvement. She expressed that she felt a lack of emotional connectedness to the environmental topic, which made it harder to write about: "I liked my 2nd one [digital story] the best because I picked the subject and it was on my grandma and I would put more emotion into it and I just enjoyed doing it better."
Even though persuasive writing and environmental issues were integrated, Mrs. A felt that the persuasive portion of the end product was "lacking." Students "don't understand writing for this purpose. They can do factual, factual, factual, but when they have to put it all together and come up with the impact statement, it's weak." For Betty, writing about her feelings was a key component for her writing involvement. She expressed that she felt a lack of emotional connectedness to the environmental topic, which made it harder to write about: "The whole environment thing, it wasn't my favorite topic. The most challenging was getting my feelings out of it, I mean, I feel sorry for the marine animals, but it didn't mean anything to me." Consequently, the voices expressed in her group's persuasive essay were less a result of her personal voice than a repeating of others'.
Figure 3: First page of storyboard.
Discussion and Conclusions
Through the digital storytelling projects, Mrs. A wanted the students to "think things out" and "become better critical thinkers." She thought that using multimedia was a benefit because,
It's not just put it on paper. Hopefully, now they can picture it and sequence that stuff in their mind and maybe organize it a little bit better. Hopefully, make them stronger writers; giving more detail, 'cause that's the thing that I think kids at this age have difficulty with, giving a lot of detail or support. This project could have done very easily [as a] research project. It could have been a paper, pencil, go research. You know you have the same amount of time 2, 2 1/2 weeks or whatever it is to do it. Come turn your paper in. Even before the formal showing [of the movies], these students are more informed about the topic than what they would have been if they were doing a single topic. There's a lot of talk. There's a lot of discussion. There's a lot of sharing that you don't have with the standard research.
Expressive fluency skills mastered by many students in these projects included thinking about how words and images can and do complement one another, how some ideas could be difficult if not impossible to express with images, and how music of different types contributes to the message of and enjoyment of a video and story. As Mr. Z put it, the "digital story-telling project...really caused them to get into their creative juices and get things flowing and come up with new ideas and look at new ways to express themselves". This supports prior research that students were more engaged in the narrative process of telling stories using technology (Bers & Cassell, 1998; Lachs & Wiliam, 1998; Weis et al., 2002).
Oral presentation was a natural part of the narration process, and the digital video technology allowed the students to practice and retake, which helped students (including one with a stutter) to develop and show off their skills, rather than shy away (Culham, 2003; Lambert, 2002). The narrative development coupled with the presentation component was an interactive process in which the audience and peers played a critical role (Carver et al., 1992; Culham, 2003; Davis, 2004; Hayes & Matusov, 2005). Students self-evaluated and self-regulated their speech patterns when recording their voices to speak more slowly and with more emotion depending upon the content of their story (Lambert, 2002).
Despite these positives, at times there seemed to be a disconnect between the students and the curriculum. Students would "do" an assignment, but didn't really care about it or appropriate the practices. With the production of a personal story, many students wanted to express themselves in a way that they had not done before. Telling a story about themselves mattered more deeply to them, so their appropriation drove their mastery of how and why to include emotion in their story. This insight was made clearer when they created the third movie about an environmental topic. Students such as Betty commented that they didn't feel emotion about it. They couldn't find the "hook" that made them want to make a message about the topic their own and portray that in their writing. Therefore, they had difficulty trying to use their personal voices to persuade people. They expressed that they became aware, maybe for the first time, that something was missing, and in this case it was a strongly positive stance toward and emotional connection to the topic that had an impact on their writing, which in turn affected the audience impact.
But was it inevitable that the students would struggle to develop their voices, and both master and appropriate expression of their voices in environmental science accounts? Our research into environmental education since the time of the intervention and the study suggests otherwise. In a classic paper, Lutts (1985) suggested that environmental education should focus on helping students develop personal connections to their environment, and that learning and telling narratives about their environment is one way to do so. Lutts built on Cox's (1973) notion of two basic kinds of stories we tell about our worlds: "my stories" and "our stories." "My stories" are told by individuals about themselves and their own personal histories, as Betty and the other students had done in the second digital storytelling project of the year described above. "Our stories" bind a particular group of people or a society together in a commonly shared narrative, and we believe it should be possible to engage students in developing and telling "our stories" about environmental topics. As Lutts put it:
We should ask first, are we teaching about the unique present; helping people to understand the environment that they experience, to value and celebrate their positive features, and to recognize the threats to them? We should also ask, are we teaching about the unique past; helping people to understand the historical process through which they and their natural environment, cultural and ecological, evolved into this special place? Are we also teaching about the potential futures; helping people to recognize the alternative, to choose those that preserve and create what they believe to be of value, and to act to bring this about? (1985, p. 40)
Lutts' recommendations yield a means to reach communication arts, environmental science, and history curriculum goals simultaneously: encourage students to value and learn about the present state of places in and aspects of their physical environment, learn about the past events and circumstances that led the present environmental situation, and learn about and bring forth recommendations about future steps they themselves want to take to care for the environment. This would provide a more explicitly narrative framework for environmental digital movies that Betty and the other groups in this study mostly lacked, with a sequence of past, present and possible future events clearly laid out. By assembling accounts of the past, present and possible future of their environment, students might be able to create persuasive digital stories that more effectively engage their voices and fulfill curriculum goals in communication arts, science, and history than the persuasive digital essays did. In future implementations, we hope to test these possibilities.
References
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Attachments:
Figure 1: Correlations between writing traits and elements of Digital Storytelling (image format), 69 K.
Figure 2: Personal story topics. (image format), 35 K.
Figure 3: First page of storyboard. (image format), 194 K.
THEN Journal http://thenjournal.org
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