Stories and social justice
There’s a great piece up at the magazine Teaching Tolerance which is entitled “Lights, Camera, Social Action!” and is all about ordinary folk creating films which highlight social justice issues.
Creating
Stories of conversion
Here’s an essay in the Christian context about using storytelling as a way to deepen faith sharing.The author, Jim Merhaut, uses moments of conversion as the foci and argues that there are five elements to such stories: Love Inspiring Witnesses Gospel Connections Holy Engagement in Community Taking Up the Mission What do you think?
TED talks about stories
The TED organization has done us a nice favor, and curated a number of TED talks which get at what it is to tell a story. We’ve posted some of these over the years here already, but check out their list: http://www.ted.com/playlists/62/how_to_tell_a_story.html
Resources for storying vocation
The Fund for Theological Education has an excellent short — and free! — resource for embodying something they label “vocation care.” The guide has within it some powerful story prompts that get at faith formation questions, as well as useful tools and background theories for engaging them well. Look at pp. 16-29 in particular.
Rules for storytelling
I’ve loved most every Pixar film ever made, which is really quite extraordinary, when you think about it. Here is a list of Pixar’s 22 rules of storytelling. Which one appeals to you?
God in a teen’s world
We are hoping to gather examples from all over of ways in which people are using digital storytelling in faith formation. Here is an example that comes from Cheryl Smith, who is the Eastern Region Resource Administrator in the Roman Catholic diocese of Syracuse, New York. As catechists we are always looking for ways to …
Nurturing student creativity
Here’s an interesting collection of examples and ideas aimed at developing student creativity using video projects in higher ed classrooms. While these examples are not explicitly about faith formation they do hold a number of interesting ideas we can draw on. The Merlot site also has a useful collection of resources for building digital case …
Learning with and from poetry
In many ways digital stories — of the sort we are encouraging in this site, stories which support faith formation — are closely linked to poetry. Concise evocations of very specific experiences, these stories create resonance through their very particularity. Learning with and from poetry can help in our creation of digital stories. Here is …
Curiosity is the place to begin
A lot of people have pointed to the auto-tune remix of Mister Rogers that was floating around the net this spring, but Clayfire media is the first attempt I’ve seen to draw lessons from it for designing worship. Their primary point is that our curiosity is the first place to begin — and they offer …
Ken Burns on storytelling
There’s a lovely piece up at The Atlantic introducing a new documentary film about Ken Burns that is premiering. I can’t wait to see the film itself, but in the meantime, there’s a short excerpt available: Among other notable comments, Ken Burns suggests: The kind of narrative that I subscribe to trusts in the possibility …