A Book Without Beginning or End
A Book Without Beginning or End
Creating a Fictional World about …Books

Description

Cue the dramatic theme music: in this Challenge, your team is going to create a Show Open for a new fantasy series – one that takes place in a World of Books, laying the fictional foundation for a new fantasy universe inside of which characters will flourish. For your World of Books, there will also be four countries and one central city. Each of these four countries must be infused with aspects of literature that are important to your team. This Challenge is essentially a journey into your …literary imagination. And if you don’t think you have a ‘literary imagination,’ then this project will prove you wrong. Go!

A Book Without Beginning or End

Language Arts Challenge

Submission Due Date: April 5, 2024

Designed for Middle and High School Students

Table of Contents

·      The Challenge

·      Assumptions and Logistics

·      Process

·      Meridian Support Resources

·      Presentation of Learning

·      Evaluation Rubric

·      Essential Questions

·      Student Proficiencies

·      Curricular Correlations (RL4, W3, W4, W5, W6, SL6, L3, L5)

Range of Activities

·      Holistic Analysis of the Reading Experience

·      Exploration of Literary Genre and Salient Components Parts

·      Imaginative Development

·      Creative Writing

·      Digital Literacy Skills – Video – Pre-production, Production and Post-production

·      Human Skills: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Presentational Skills

 

 

The Challenge

“At such times he had the sensation that there was only one book in the universe, and that all books were simply portals into this greater ongoing work – an inexhaustible, beautiful world that was not imaginary but the world as it truly was, a book without beginning or end.”

Pg. 57, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

This quote posits that books are portals into a world of books…which is, for this character, the most genuine of worlds.

In this Challenge, your team is going to use this quote as inspiration to create a new imaginary world of books, as if laying the fictional foundation for a new universe inside of which characters will flourish. To get a sense of what we are talking about, think of recent serialized book series, which then become feature films (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, …). Our serialized model is, however, based on the thirty book series that began with The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, which was first published in 1900. In OZ there are four countries: Gillikin Country, Winkie Country, Quadling Country and Munchkin Country. In the center is Emerald City. Here is what that world looks like.

For your World of Books, there will also be four countries and one central city. Each of these four countries must be infused with aspects of literature that are important to your team. Here are some suggestions. Your team may use up to three (or none) of these suggestions for the four countries:

  1. Text and Language – Language, and its manipulation, is at the core of a book. What is the role of words in this country? (This might include font size and style, word choice, vocabulary, sentence structure, texting, etc.)
  2. Fictional Genre – There are many different types of fictional genres – mysteries, fairy tales, children’s books, romantic novels, to name just a few. Does a single genre dominate your ‘greater ongoing world’? Or do the different genres mix harmoniously?
  3. Voice – Perspective – who is telling the story – channels the way that we experience the narrative. How important is the voice of the character – of your protagonist – to your experience with literature? How might ‘voice’ shape a country in your World of Books, literally and figuratively?
  4. Non- Fiction – The world referenced above in the quote isn’t necessarily all imagined. Non-fiction – autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, and historical narratives – account for a large proportion of the books published annually. In your World of Books, is there a place for the lives and musings of real people talking about real events?
  5. Poetry and Plays – Poetry and plays occupy a special universe that is defined by using language in very disciplined and structured ways, yielding new experiences and art forms: in short, new ways of communication through words. What might a poetic or theatrical country look like in your World of Books?
  6. Physicality – Books are kindles. Books are e-books. Books are serialized in a magazine. Books are hardcover. Books are softcover. Books are interactive and hyperlinked. How does the physical presence of the book affect the reading experience? How might this come into play in your fictional universe? Is this country, …one massive, animated library?

The piece that is missing is the central city. What, in your experience, is at the core of the reading experience; at the core of your encounters with a book or a story; at the core of what the character above says is the “inexhaustible, beautiful world that was not imaginary but the world as it truly was, a book without beginning or end”?

The format for this Challenge is a series Show Open – one that needs to fully explain this world in three or four minutes (no more!), as if it were the opening moments in a new series or feature film that will take place in this world. In short, you are setting the scene – the place – a place that will clearly be as much of a character in your bookish universe as the characters themselves. However – and this is important – after presenting the whole universe, around half of your video should focus on just one of your areas – a country or Central City – in detail. This place is where your ‘story’ starts. And so this Show Open that you are producing begins with the big picture, and then takes us into the heart of one of the places.

This is a challenge about creativity, as well as about probing deeply into the essence of reading and its role in shaping our world today; in giving meaning to our world and, more specifically, to your world. This is your chance to create your Tomorrowland –King’s Landing – District 13 – The Shire – Oz – but as seen through the lens of the explosive and infinite universe of books.

Deliverables include:

  • The World of Books Show Open Video (this is the only Meridian Stories deliverable)
  • Rough Draft of World of Books Map (at teacher’s discretion)
  • Shooting Script (at teacher’s discretion)

Assumptions and Logistics

  • Time Frame – We recommend that this digital storytelling project takes place inside of a three to five-week time frame.
  • Length – All Meridian Stories submissions should be under 4 minutes in length, unless otherwise specified.
  • Slate – All digital storytelling projects must begin with a slate that provides: 
    • the title of the piece;
    • the name of the school submitting;      
    • the wording ‘Permission Granted’ which gives Meridian Stories the right to a) publicly display the submission in question on, as linked from, related to or in support of Meridian Stories digital media; and b) use or reference it for educational purposes only, in any and all media; and
    • We strongly recommend that students do not put their last names on the piece either at the start or finish, during the credits.
  • Submissions – Keep in mind that each school can only submit three submissions per Competition (so while the entire class can participate in any given Challenge, only three can be submitted to Meridian Stories for Mentor review and scoring).
  • Teacher Reviews – All reviews by the teacher are at the discretion of the teacher and all suggested paper deliverables are due only to the teacher. The only deliverable to Meridian Stories is the digital storytelling project.
  • Teacher’s Role and Technology Integrator – While it is helpful to have a Technology Integrator involved, they are not usually necessary: the students already know how to produce the digital storytelling project. And if they don’t, part of their challenge is to figure it out. They will! The teacher’s primary function in these Challenges is to guide the students as they engage with the content.  You don’t need to know editing, sound design, shooting or storyboarding: you just need to know your content area, while assisting them with organization and time management issues. See the Teachers Role section of the website for further ideas about classroom guidance.
  • Digital Rules/Literacy – We strongly recommend that all students follow the rules of Digital Citizenry in their proper usage and/or citation of images, music and text taken from other sources. This recommendation includes producing a citations page at the end of your entry, if applicable. See the Digital Rules area in the Meridian Stories Digital Resource Center section of the site for guidance.
  • Location – Try not to shoot in a classroom at your school. The classroom, no matter how you dress it up, looks like a classroom and can negatively impact the digital story you are trying to tell.
  • Collaboration – We strongly recommend that students work in teams of 3-4: part of the educational value is around building collaborative skill sets. But students may work individually.

 

Process

Below is a suggested breakdown for the students’ work.

 

During Phase I, student teams will:

  • Brainstorm and share your own experience with books: what in your reading and study of literature experience is most salient, moving, and thought-provoking? From this session, make a list of the attributes of the reading experience that are most important to your team. There is no right or wrong: this is about your relationship, good and bad, to reading.
  • Prioritize this list and decide on the themes of each of the four countries that make up your World of Books (you are allowed to call it something other than ‘World of Books’!)
  • Create a rough outline of the title, literary essence, and attributes of each of the four countries. This Challenge is asking you to substantiate each of these areas with your select knowledge. This may involve direct quotations, characters, book titles, authors, literary journals, recurring literary motifs, alliteration, etc. Your team needs to reveal a certain depth of understanding about each topic that you have chosen. That understanding can be both objective and subjective, the latter as revealed through deep reflection on what reading means for you.
  • Based on the above, brainstorm the nature of the Central City. Be sure to ask yourself:
  • How does this Central City connect the four countries?
  • How does this Central City represent the pinnacle of these four countries? Or not?
  • Create a first draft of the visual map of this world.
    • Teacher’s Option: Rough Draft of World of Books Map – Teachers may require groups to hand in rough drafts of their visual maps.

During Phase II, student teams will:

  • Now dig deeply into the literary substance of the select country (or Central City) that you will feature; that will start this new TV series. What are the inhabitants like? What is the architecture? What do people do in this country…as it relates to your dominant literary theme? Are there even people in this country? If not people, then what/who?
  • Brainstorm the design of the video. Remember, the purpose is to communicate a place that is both reflective of your thoughtfully considered relationship to books, while also being inviting and imaginatively stimulating. Questions to consider:
    • What are you showing? In addition to some sort of map, are you using animation techniques to bring your select country alive? Might a montage format begin to deliver the look and feel of your country? A diorama or three-dimensional model? Shadow puppetry?
      • When presenting your world visually, are you more focused on the whole world, or on your select Country or Central City?
      • What are some of the unique props or costumes that might inform this world? Are these things going to be featured in your Show Open?
    • What are you saying? This is about books, so language is important. What words are you choosing to sell us on the magic and mystery of this world? Who is speaking? One voice or several? Music: what is the role of music?
  • Write a first draft of the script. Once you have settled on a good draft of the script, it may be helpful to create a storyboard to match the visual shots to the script.
  • Finalize the script.
    • Teacher’s Option: Shooting Script – Teachers may require groups to hand in final scripts of their Show Open video.
  • Pre-produce the scene:
  • Complete the artwork, props, related visual materials and other set pieces, as needed;
  • Prepare the logistics for the actual shooting of the scene; and
  • Rehearse the shoot.

During Phase III, student teams will:

  • Shoot the video.
  • Edit the video, adding stills and graphics as desired.
  • Post-produce the video, adding music and sound effects as desired.

Meridian Support Resources

Meridian Stories provides two forms of support for the student teams:

1.    Meridian Innovators and Artists – This is a series of three-to-four-minute videos featuring artists and innovative professionals who offer important advice, specifically for Meridian Stories, in the areas of creativity and production.

 

2.    Media Resource Collection – These are short documents that offer student teams a key tips in the areas of creativity and production.

Recommended review, as a team, for this Challenge include:

Meridian Innovators and Artists Media Resource Collection
On Fiction Writing – Lily King

On the Importance of Characters in Storytelling – Scott Nash

On Multimedia in Theatre – Roger Bechtel

On Sound Design – Chris Watkinson

“Creative Brainstorming Techniques”

“Building Characters”

“Creating Storyboards, Framing the Shot”

“Three Free Rendering and Animation Programs”

 

Presentation of Learning

Meridian Stories is a proud partner of the non-profit Share Your Learning, which is spearheading the movement of over five million students to publicly share their work as a meaningful part of their educational experience.

The workforce considers Presentational Skills to be a key asset and we encourage you to allow students to practice this skill set as often as possible. These digital storytelling projects provide a great opportunity for kids to practice their public presentational skills. This can be achieved in a remote learning environment by inviting parents to a Zoom/Google/Skype screening of the student’s digital stories.

According to Share Your Learning, Presentations of Learning (POL) promote…

  • Student Ownership, Responsibility & Engagement. POLs can serve as a powerful rite of passage at the end of [a project]. By reflecting on their growth over time in relation to academic and character goals, grounded in evidence from their work, students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning. Just as an artist wants their portfolio to represent their best work, POLs encourage students to care deeply about the work they will share.
  • Community Pride & Involvement. When peers, teachers and community members come together to engage with student work and provide authentic feedback, they become invested in students’ growth and serve as active contributors to the school community.
  • Equity. POLs ensure that all students are seen and provide insight into what learning experiences students find most meaningful and relevant to their lives.

Meridian Stories’ own research indicates this to be a really useful exercise for one additional reason:  Students actually learn from their peers’ presentations – it is useful to hear a perspective that is not just the teacher’s.

It is with this in mind that we you encourage you to plan an event – it could be just an end-of-the-week class or an event where parents, teachers and student peers are invited – to allow the students to showcase their Meridian Stories’ digital storytelling projects. For more free resources that will support this planning, visit Share Your Learning.

 

 

 

Evaluation Rubric – A Book Without Beginning or End

HUMAN SKILLS COMMAND (for teachers only)
Collaborative Thinking The group demonstrated flexibility in making compromises and valued the contributions of each group member
Creativity and Innovation The group brainstormed many inventive ideas and was able to evaluate, refine and implement them effectively
Initiative and Self-Direction The group set attainable goals, worked independently and managed their time effectively, demonstrating a disciplined commitment to the project

CONTENT COMMAND
Criteria 1 – 10
Countries – Depth of Content The presentation of each country’s content is thoughtful and reflects imaginative engagement with the content of books
Singular Country – Depth of Content The focus on your select country or Central City is layered and reflects thoughtful and imaginative engagement with the content of books
Central City The literary content that defines the core of your world is thoughtful and is in sensible and interesting dialogue with the surrounding countries
STORYTELLING COMMAND
Criteria 1 – 10
Narrative The world and its component parts form a cohesive and imaginative World of Books, stimulating further interest from the viewer in books themselves
Scripting and Language The narrative and overall use of language succeeded in communicating the nature and tone of your world in an engaging way
Show Open Format Your presentation is designed to elicit a deeper interest in further exploring the world and the characters, attributes and conflicts within.
Creativity Your team has invented a new fictional world that reflects positively its literary origins and your own creative spirit
MEDIA COMMAND
Criteria 1 – 10
Visual Design The presentation of the world is visually stimulating and thoughtful, and reflects the content in myriad ways
Sound Design The mix of music, voice and sound effects greatly enhances our engagement with the video
Editing The pacing matches the Show Open style that is designed to both tease and inform the audience of the fictional world to follow

Essential Questions

  1. On a personal level, what is the essence of the reading experience for you?
  2. What are the most salient elements of literary engagement and why?
  3. What are some important works of literature – novels, poetry, plays, short stories, nonfiction – that have impacted your understanding of self and the world around you?
  4. Can you identify the specific elements within those works that help them to succeed?
  5. How does one create a fictional setting that could plausibly sustain a new imaginative universe of characters and stories?
  6. How has immersion in the creation of original content and the production of digital media – exercising one’s creativity, critical thinking, and digital literacy skills – deepened the overall educational experience?
  7. How has working on a team – practicing one’s collaborative skills – changed the learning experience?

Student Proficiencies

  1. The student will have a deeper sense of their relationship to reading and literature; a deeper sense of why they read or why they may want to consider starting to read in the near future.
  2. The student will understand, after a collaborative analysis, the component parts that make reading relevant for him/her/them.
  3. The student will have analyzed specific elements from his/her/their inventory of literary experience in the service of creating this new fictional setting.
  4. The student, working collaboratively, will have participated in the creation of a new fictional universe.
  5. The student will utilize key 21st century skills, with a focus on creativity, critical thinking, and digital literacy, in their process of translating literary content into a new narrative format.
  6. The student will have an increased awareness of the challenges and rewards of team collaboration. Collaboration – the ability to work with others – is considered one of the most important 21st century skills to develop in students as they prepare for life after secondary school.

 

 

Curricular Correlations 

The A Book Without Beginning or End Challenge addresses a range of curricular objectives that have been articulated by the Common Core Curricular Standards – English Language Arts. Below please find the standards that are addressed, either wholly or in part.

Common Core Curricular Standards – English Language Arts Standards

Standard 8th 9th/10th 11th/12th
RL4

 

READING: LITERATURE

 

Craft and Structure

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
W3

 

WRITING

 

Text Types and Purposes

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
W4

 

WRITING

 

Production and Distribution of Writing

Produce clear and coherent writing in which
the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
W5

 

WRITING

 

Production and Distribution of Writing

With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying
a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
W6

 

WRITING

 

Production and Distribution of Writing

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
SL6

 

SPEAKING AND LISTENING

 

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
L3

 

LANGUAGE

 

Knowledge of Language

Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

 

Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
L5

 

LANGUAGE

 

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

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