Creatively Connecting Curriculum to the Digital Learner
Message From the Executive Director
Meridian Stories is announcing a new Digital Storytelling Initiative called Narrative Flashpoint. The objective is to provide students with an opportunity to excavate, express and share their perspectives during this unique moment in humankind’s history.
We are amidst an utterly novel societal moment where our global perspective about self and community and the earth is shifting. In our lifetimes, we have never been here before. BUT, while we are at this moment, what are the stories that need to be told? What are the stories that might bring some clarity to the blur that the pandemic is causing? What are the stories that simply in the telling might help your students through to the other end?
This is Narrative Flashpoint, an initiative designed to propel your students to reflect deeply on this moment in their lives – a moment of shared common humanity if there ever was one, but experienced, paradoxically, in isolation – and to create a two minute digital story about their reflections. It is designed to work with the tools you have available in your remote learning environment.
Narrative Flashpoint is a free initiative designed to engage your students with the most pressing issues in their lives: the Now.
Narrative Flashpoint provides your students with eight different digital storytelling prompts from which to chose. Eight different pathways to discover and craft their voice; to participate in the global narrative of this pandemic.
There are no obligations. You can share their work with Meridian Stories so that we can all witness the collective voices, …or not.
All EIGHT Narrative Flashpoint prompts are posted. They are:
Imagination Unleashed: Fantastical Stories
Personal Reflections: A Self Portrait
Headlines from Home: A News Report
Motif Hunting: A Story Without Words
Forecasting the Future: Home Interviews
A Moment of Light: Hopeful Stories from your Home
And finally, Prompts #7 and #8.(See below)
This is open to …EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.
Please share.
Thanks!
– Brett Pierce [email protected]
Prompt #7
Finding Humor Amidst Darkness: A Comedy
ADDRESSED TO THE STUDENT
For many, one of the best weapons we have at our disposal to combat anxiety is …humor. Humor – particularly ‘dark humor’ which is about finding ‘funny’ amidst the ‘unpleasant’– can help people cope with the anxiety and fear of a stressful situation. In this prompt, create a short digital story that features some humor about this extremely challenging time in our lives, … and help bring a little laughter into the world.
To see the full prompt go to Narrative Flashpoint on the Meridian Stories website.
Prompt #8
Micro Stories: A Photo Essay
ADDRESSED TO THE STUDENT
In 2020, almost everyone is a photographer of sorts. Communicating through photos for many of you is as important as communicating through words. It’s a literacy. But communicating aspects of your ‘self’ through a single shot on social media is different from creating a photographic story about an idea that is larger than ‘self.’ This second idea is hard. But also exciting. In this prompt, create a photographic micro story about any aspect of your current living condition. The parameters: 6 to 8 photos, and no captions or words, except … a story title.
To see the full prompt go to Narrative Flashpoint on the Meridian Stories website.