Digital Booktalks:

Using the Story Invention Process and Transforming Reluctant Readers to avid ones, one book/video at a time

Stories may…

Propose something (this is what I want)

Change attitudes (convince you of my point of view)

Represent a point of view (this is what I believe)

Story Elements

Character

Setting

Plot / conflict

Conflict Building

Three parts:

• Before: character learns of the need to do something, is influenced, hesitates, decides, or refuses.
  

• During: character performs the task(s), some succeed, others fail, etc.
  

• After: consequences of these actions.

Is this a Story?

Once upon a time there was a person…

                       the end

Is this a Story?

Once upon a time there was a person …. who ran into a conflict…

                           the end

What about the reader/viewer?

Plays a role in interpretation of the events

A narrative has many unsaid things and it is up to the reader/viewer/player to reconstruct them based on the pieces given

So, who are you?

• Teachers (elementary, MS, HS)

• Media Specialist

• Reading Coaches

• Professors

• Administrators

• Others…

Reading for Context

Lets Do an Activity called         “The House”

Story Invention Process

Plot  Generation

• Time and place

• Change happens (caused by something)

• A recognition/judgment

• They tell you how they know about it

Example

Video Example from Bourne Ultimatum

Example or non-Example?

Recap – Story Invention

4 C’s of Cause & Effect

• Change Happens

• Caused by Something

• A reCognition/Judgment

• Is Credible

Kinds of Causes

Includes a judgment as to relative likelihood that particular events might happen together and will cause a particular result:

• Coincidences (purely random, or arbitrary)

• Chronological (governed by time)

• Conventions (set by familiar or social practices)

• Mediated (video games cause violent behaviors?)

• Enabling (one element empowers another)

• Direct (one element is enough to cause another)

• Unique (one specific element is the only thing that can cause the other)

How many causes?

A short narrative has one or two only

You have to tell your story in 2 minutes

AND

Also blocks out other possible combinations…avoids confusion

So, what is your Story?

If you could be something or someone different than you are, what would it be? What is your story?

Here are the guiding questions

So, what is your Story?

You need to create a story that includes the 4 elements:

• Time and place

• A change (cause & effect)

• A recognition/judgment

• Explain how you know came to know it

Video editing in iMovie (6.0)

• Palette (Clip Board)

• Time Line -  2 views

• Audio lines (extracting/unhooking from video)

• Editing (titles, transitions, video FX, Audio FX)

• Special Considerations

• Rendering

Hands On with iMovie

Digital Booktalks do...

• Re-enact the book don’t talk about it.

• Show time passing, and characters and setting.

• Introduce one or two causes (conflict/moral dilemma)  the character faces.

• Set the tone/premise.

Digital Booktalks are not…

• the same as a movie trailer.

• the same as a commercial.

• a book ‘talk’.

Show causes AND effects?

• Show the one or two primary causes (your artistic judgment).
  

• Show cause(s) but probably not the effect(s).
  

• Holding back creates opportunity for an epic finish.
  

• Don’t be cheesy!