Meridian Stories Annual Digital Storytelling Competition
2023-2024

2023-2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

Language Arts

Dreams and Aspirations in Literature and Your Lives [“Death of a Salesman”]

In “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller explores the concept of the American Dream. The characters in his play all seek to define and achieve “their” American Dream despite the many obstacles they face in life. More specifically, these are characters, obstacles, and dreams in the 1940’s and 50’s. How, then, have these dreams changed today? This Challenges asks you to contrast your dreams with those of Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman. You do not have to use Death of a Salesman as your referent. Many other novels and short stories have central characters that are defined by their dreams and aspirations. So, …dream then, dream now. And tell a story about it.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

Language Arts

Op-Ed Text Alive! — A Story of Words

Your team is going to write a short Op-Ed piece. Now typically, when you write a paper, the reader is the one who supplies the meaning. In this Challenge, you get a little more control over that relationship! Your team is going to visually ‘produce’ your piece using only text, voice-over, music, and sound effects. Amplify your voice!

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

Language Arts

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

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!

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

Language Arts

Comic Poetry Sketch

In the United States, in April, in every year, there is both National Humor Month and National Poetry Month. Soooo, this Meridian Stories Challenge attempts to honor both in a mashup of stories! Create a comic sketch that successfully communicates the basic rules and essence that govern three different kinds of poetry.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

Language Arts

“The Lottery” – Reimagined: A Photographic Storyboard

Since 1948, Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” has resonated with students and educators. Why? That is what this challenge asks you to examine. Read and study the story; create a 12-frame visual storyboard of the story, BUT, change a few things — the setting, the order of the scenes, and …add a new scene – without changing the ending. The Lottery Reimagined challenges you to both probe the meaning of the original story; visualize it; and enhance it.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

STEAM

The Passion Pitch: Imagining Your Future Selves

The Passion Pitch challenges student teams to concretely imagine who and what they want to be in the very near future, with an eye toward creating positive community impact. The Passion Pitch digital stories will be about starting a new company post-secondary education, or launching an initiative — an action, a movement — right now to catalyze change and thought. But this is Meridian Stories, so there’s always a twist and in this case, your pitch, to funders, must include 20 seconds of a surprising moment. There are 15 such moments from which to choose, from puppetry to dancing to …unboxing. Look to the future …technology, art, the environment …and tell us about your proposed role in it!

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

STEAM

The Game’s Afoot — Mathematical Board Game Creation

Math challenges abound in all of your favorite board games. For example, what are the chances of landing on Boardwalk and Park Place? How many rolls of the dice will it take to get to the billiard room to ask about Colonel Mustard with the wrench? In The Game’s Afoot, your team combines game design elements with one of the following mathematical concepts to create a new, non-electronic, math-based game:

• Building and interpreting functions
• Transformations (rotations, reflections, & translations)
• Vectors
• Modeling (geometric, graphical, tabular, algebraic, or statistical)
• Probability

The resulting deliverable will be a documentary of the development and design process that concludes with your peers playing the actual game.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

STEAM

Tree Mapping – A Data-Driven Snapshot of the Trees in Your Community

It is vital to understand the ecosystem services that trees in your community provide. But not everyone gets it. As the town arborist, you’re making a video presentation analyzing the tree ecosystem in your neighborhood (or downtown area) to be delivered to the town council. First, you must create a tree-based map of a given area that notes each building and tree in the area. Then you must analyze the data, addressing, minimally, these criteria:

• Tree biodiversity
• Native vs. foreign species
• Threats to trees, including pests and disease
• Root system health (space, soil chemistry, etc.)

In the end, how environmentally tree sound is your community?

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

STEAM

Plagiarizing Nature — Pitch Video

You and your team have developed a product that mimics a natural phenomenon or process — what is called biomimicry. But to fully develop your concept and successfully bring it to market, you need financing. This is your lucky break: you have been selected to present your idea to a team of investors who can propel your project forward. Make the case for why this product or process will make the most difference for society: Is it the strongest? Lightest? Most energy efficient? Time is short, competition for funding is fierce, and you need a financial boost.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

STEAM

Social Media and Your Mental Health: A Dramatic Monologue

We all know that being ‘connected’ through social media and technology can have its consequences. Your team is challenged with researching this issue and interviewing your peers, with the intent of creating a singular, fictional character that embodies the multiple perspectives gathered about one’s relationship with their mobile device(s). You will then write a monologue for this character and shoot him/her/them. It’s a dramatic monologue, one of the most fascinating narrative forms to explore.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

History 

Both Sides Now — An Historical Podcast

In this Challenge, your team is asked to conduct research on one of the key events from either the American Revolution or the Civil War. Then, select a historical figure to represent the opposing perspectives. These will be the guests on your podcast — a program that you will need to title and create a graphic/logo for — and the third character will be the host: the interviewer. What are the ramifications of the event you have selected and why is each side willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs, for or against this moment in history? In short, what’s the whole story?

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

History

Countries of the World — A Promotional Video

The national tourism board of your select country has decided that they would like to educate more tourists about the nature and origins of their country through the use of a fun and entertaining promotional digital story. The tourism board has hired you and your group to make the digital story to educate tourists as well as encourage them to come visit your country. But this tourism board wants a story: a story about their nation, the culture, their place in the world. To that end, your digital story must begin with: “Welcome to X country. This is our story.” Go!

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

History 

Investigative Journalism — Native American Peoples in Your Community: Then and Now

In this challenge, your team is asked to investigate the Native American history within your hometown (or region). Then create a short podcast that discusses the tribes that existed on that land and to what extent your hometown recognizes its Native American history. Working from the detective-like platform of an investigative journalist, unearth the story of the past and present Native American presence in your community. We suspect you will find information that hasn’t been brought to the public in many a year.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

History

Tales and Myths from Ancient Civilizations — Re-told and Modernized

The study of history and past civilizations is essential in understanding the current state of the global world and relationships between societies and their people. In this challenge, your team is asked to pick and read a short story from an ancient civilization and then retell that story, set in today’s times, with minimal props and appropriate narration and dramatic representations, bringing to the fore how that story resonates in society today.

2023 — 2024 Meridian Stories Competitions

History

Supreme Court/World Court Movie Trailer

Brown v Board of Education … Miranda v. Arizona … Bush v. Gore … District of Columbia v. Heller: these and many other earth–shattering Supreme Court decisions have contributed to the shape of the nation today. Each case is also rife with vengeance, egotism, deep intelligence, hysteria, unpredictability and much, much more. In short, the elements of a really good story!

Pick a 20th or 21st century seminal Supreme Court Case (or World Court) and create a two minute movie trailer advertising the conflicting positions taken, the characters involved and the drama that ensued.