[Week 7] Continued

After reading more about storytelling as an element of instructional designed, I feel compelled to reflect on something I posted in Chris' blog, which I will repost here:

"There is also a component of storytelling that I find very interesting – good storytellers seldom tell stories that are 100% true. In one way this is negative – how can we trust the story? how can we be sure it is true? In another way, it is positive – it allows the storyteller to convey the truth of the emotional experience. As a simple example: A fisherman lands a big fish. When he tells the story of how big it was, he exaggerates. Why is this? I feel it is because he needs to convey the truth of his experience, which is the extent of his surprise, joy, and excitement at catching the fish. So, when he tells the story, that fish is not 30 inches long and 7.4 pounds. It is "three FEET and 8 WHOLE POUNDS! It nearly snapped the rod in half", the line didn’t just make noise under tension," it was SINGING!"…etc…

In my mind, this is where the power of the story lays – it allows the teller to emphasize the interaction between facts (the world) and meaningful experience. I feel this is why mythical stories persist for so long. Harnessing the power of stories for instruction is not easy, primarily because the learners are, in many ways, living in a different world than the instructors, and so it is hard to know what they will find compelling.

I have also seen and used stories to indoctrinate newcomers to a specific mentality. Teaching people to rock climb, I tend to repeat the way I was taught: Direct instruction, Mnemonics, and stories. Direct instruction is: "Do x in situation y because z." Mnemonics helped encode important ideas (SRENE for the development of solid anchors). Stories, however, served to initiate the learner into the mentality required for survival in high angle environments. Also, they were designed to cultivate a mentality that respects, but is not controlled by fear and danger. There were also hero and blunder stories, many of which had instruction imbedded into them. These stories composed a mythology and historical record of climbers in the Red River Gorge, with main characters starting in about 1968 until the present day.

I think designing stories for instruction is tricky, particularly since authenticity is elusive. Some considerations:

1) Is the story authentic? Real stories are about events that are important in people's lives, or are unusual or interesting for one reason or another.

2) Is it memorable? Story construction, level of detail, irony, fulfillment or denial of expectation, and content can each play a role.

3) How well does it intersect with the learner's experience? Stories that the learner has no ability to relate to do not work well. For example, telling a story about how you were halfway up a climbing route, were" totally pumped, greasing off, and you found out you were out of #1's, 20 foot run out from your last piece, and had to downclimb the crux..." That story has no meaning to someone who is not a specific type of climber. Stories must be relevant.

4) Details matter: if the story content matches well with the learner's experience, then details add an important depth to the story. This is a place where learning happens. Details set up the story for its lesson - Did the hero remember to do x, y, and z? How much time did he spend doing x, y, z. Detail is a place where a concept can be repeated, and made more important.

What would you add?