Chapter 10

This chapter went beyond the structure of the story and discussed what comes before the story. What is the origination of the story and the ideas that inspired it? What culture does it come from? Why was this story created?

While my initial thoughts dragged me to the interesting discussion involving authenticity and nontraditional story rolls, another sentence jumped out at me that I feel truly differentiated types of stories. Ohler aptly pointed out while discussing music videos and their content,

"Given that rock videos are music set to videos, rather than videos set to music, we should expect images to serve the music rather than vice versa."

Jason B. Ohler. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity (p. 128). Kindle Edition.

This idea that, the art form that a work is created for rules the work, is really powerful. All forms of  stories can be considered art regardless whether they are in a movie, digital story, book or blog. What these stories all have that is different is the focus of the art. Each person who creates one of these types of stories has a specific passion for a certain art. If the work is a music video the creator's passion is music. If the creator's passion is film, a move is the focus. If the creator loves photography a photo video might be the focus.

This being said, I think Ohler's idea of having a certain discipline rule the work should be kept in mind when observing, grading and presenting digital stories. Why are we creating this story? Whatever a creator's passion is, will come through as the strongest aspect of the work. Instead of stating that "the music is too powerful", we should ask, "does this student have a passion for music? is there art in the way the story and visuals improve the experience of the music? Is this music with a video?...or a video with music? This may be an important aspect to discuss in an assignment to direct students in the correct direction a teacher might be intending.