Chapter 8

This chapter helps us pull apart the aspects of "transformation" and deconstruct it down to its base elements. While debriefing "transformation" it because apparent to me that Bloom's (1964) taxonomy of cognitive processes, Affective "Transformation" and Kohlberg's "Stages of moral development" all offer numeric levels associated with different changes in a character. My concern is with this type of presentation that students would be prompted to construct a transformation with the highest "score". Ohler highlights this concern when he mentioned,

"Are some changes better than others? Perhaps. But most important, story characters need to change in ways that make sense within the context of the story."

Jason B. Ohler. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity (p. 111). Kindle Edition.

I think students need to understand that  a more personal and meaningful transformation for a character makes that character memorable. That being said, we do not want students awkwardly transforming their character's internal moral compass and redefining the meaning of life while choosing the perfect hamster at the pet store. There needs to be a conversation about adding elements to stories but still remembering that the story is not a jigsaw puzzle, and needs to be considered as a whole through out the process of creation.