My hope for class today was that we might begin to see some of the conflicts that Glynda Hull's article (and Rachel's essay) brought up for us being played out. The digital story that you are creating is part of this new media movement, which is supposed to be owned by younger people. Its origins are outside the academy. Or are they? How does what we know about storytelling, writing, art, music, communication, argument, rhetoric, etc. affect how we create these new media narratives? How do we judge or evaluate them?
The people who I think of as "digital story telling purists" have something very specific in mind when they talk about digital stories. They are talking about a personal narrative, someone telling their own story, using pictures and sound and a performed narrative. Purists might say our stories aren't "digital stories" because they are telling someone else's story. But that is the task the Boys and Girls club kids are taking on as well. How are their stories going to be judged?
Today we started working on a rubric for how I would grade these stories. Here is what we have so far:
Script: 30 points
Use of 7 elements: 45 points
images: 15 points
class vote: 10 points
But we also had one group look at some successful video stories on youtube and they looked at what captures audience attention and makes for effective communication. They said:
energy (through music and visual appeal), content (interesting) and word choice (facts?)
Questions:
1. Since our purpose is to learn how to make an excellent DS in order to help the kids make an excellent DS, what role should their judging guidelines play?
2. since our other purpose is to learn about writers and the writing process, what part should that play in the evaluation of the stories? How do I grade it? (the script alone? the finished product?)
3. How do these things map onto (or can they be mapped onto) the rubric that we started together? Do I collect scripts and grade them? What do I look for in the script and reward with points? What things would make you lose points? What about the "7 elements" ? How are each of those to be judged? Pictures--what makes a good picture? What separates an average use of a picture from an excellent use of a picture?
4. We decided class vote should be part of the evaluation and point distribution. Everyone ranks everyone else's video on a scale of 1-10, and then the student is awarded the average of the points. Do we need to establish what we are looking for in awarding the 1-10?
Finally, a group decided that our timeline for the project should include: Oct. 4--bring in narrative for peer review and final project due on Oct 18. Is this enough help on the prject? Are there other pieces that could benefit from peer review? Does all peer review have to happen in class? Could there be a preliminary review of the DS itself (since how it affects the audience is part of the grade)?
My goal as the instructor is to make sure that the evaluation procedures set up for the project reward the behaviors and products that contribute to the learning goals of the class. But since the learning objectives aren't only about learning what a DS is, and learning to create a DS, how do we set this up? We have more academic goals: to learn about what a "narrative line" is, to reward rich content, to learn how to learn about new media and how to know when you have used it well, and to learn about writers. And then there is the whole issue of effort. what if someone spends a lot of time, but the DS is terrible? And how do we know if we have accomplished the goal of learning how to teach this to others? These are "academic" concerns. Do they fit with new media and free, creative expression? Can we make them fit? Should we? If new media is about the judgment of the peer crowd, why wouldn't we have that be 100% of the grade?
And The Show Goes On
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I am wondering if anyone will continue to use their blog even after this
class is over. I think it will be a cool way to interact if we still
continue to u...
15 years ago
In regards to the grading process, I think it's important to look at the digital story as a whole. If you were to grade the narrative by itself, it would not be as effective without the combination of the photos in the story. I certainly think it is important for you to have a copy of the script whilst watching the digital story, but in order to grade it I feel like you have to judge the piece of work as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of what makes a good photo and what doesn't, I feel it will be evident whilst watching the story which photos add an element or layer to the narrative and which detract something from it. The purpose of the photos is not necessarily to just reiterate the point made in the narrative (i.e. a piece of paper when you say "piece of paper") but to add a new way of thinking about a certain point. The purpose of putting photos in a digital story in the first place is to 1. better understand the point that's being made and 2. to give the audience a visual representation of what the writer was thinking of, maybe not necessarily what they said.
Overall, I feel like we can make all kinds of guidelines and rubrics on how to grade the digital story, but in the end, it all comes down to the cohesiveness of the photos with the narrative, and how well the point is communicated to the audience.
In class, someone suggested dividing the 45 points for "use of the 7 elements" into subgroups for each element. I agree with this idea because I think it better emphasizes incorporating all seven elements into the one, final completion of the DS.
ReplyDeleteOn note of grading the actual written script itself, I don't think it should be graded at all because I think there is a fundamental difference between a digital story and a traditional essay. And that difference is the final product. By handing in the written component, it distracts from the authority of the video.
Just some thoughts.
I agree that the script should not be evaluated, since the assignment is the final project of the digital story. By the same token, I'm not so sure how pictures could be graded either. While of course we want to make sure that the pictures enhance the narrative, who is to say what pictures are good, better, or best? I'm sure it would be obvious if there were pictures that were terrible representations by any strecth of the imagination; however, it seems to me like it would be difficult to determine a breakdown of grading for all other images that lend something to the story.
ReplyDeleteI also am not sure if the 7 elements should be worth so much, as far as points go. Even 35 points would be a lot in my opinion, but at least it would break down evenly, allowing 5 points for each element. What would the gradient be within each element's evaluation. What would separate someone from getting 3 points or 5 points in each category?
Just a few thoughts...we can discuss them later.
Professor Dolson raises an important issue when she questions the origins of technology-based expression as "outside the academy." Essentially, we are students are trying to stike a balance between the traditional and the new. In a broad way, we are trying to bridge the practical and the abstract. And ultimately, we are trying to make things relevant. This is not just our goal with this project, but also as future writing consultants and tutors. I think we need to keep our fundamental goals in mind when considering how we might sugguest Professor Dolson grade our digital stories. I think we need to promote creativity and hope for interesting technology-based projects while we also must remember the formalist aspects of the project. What is the professor's writing process like and how can we use the information we have gathered to form a case-study on the process of writing? How can the presentation of what we have learned teach us to be better writers? If we can present this, our projects are successful.
ReplyDeleteI think the script should be graded. It is a skill to be able to take what a professor has told you and put a cohesive script together. Some people will be better at this skill than using technology to put together an excellent digital story. If the script is graded this will help even out the playing field and focus on everyone's strengths.
ReplyDeleteSince the focus of this assignment is to help other students I think we should be graded on our ability to put together a digital. Have we proved that we can put music and photos into the story? If so you have demostrated your ability and will probably be able to help another student do same. There should be less of a focus on music choice and use of photos.
I almost think that the script and the 7 elements should have equal weight. Since this is an English course, focusing on writing, getting the story across effectively, which will half due to how well the writer tells it is very important. While I understand that this is a little bit of a different assignment, and that is why the 7 elements are a priority when grading, I think the script is equally as significant to a good digital story as the pictures and other aspect that tie it all together.
ReplyDelete