The curriculum was already set when I was brought in for the job. The designers had crafted a comprehensive and thoroughly illuminating set of materials for the students.
However, coming up with the curriculum is only half the battle in the education field. The most difficult challenge is presenting the material in a compelling manner and digestible manner. Even the best-designed materials will fall flat unless students can retain the most important information and build on it going forward. Educational approaches such as the Montessori Method stress the importance of student enjoyment and motivation.
Traditional pedagogic styles focused on repetition and rote. However, studies have shown these methods to be ineffective for genuine learning. This is because our minds tend to reject force-fed information. Instead, deeper understanding occurs when our minds receive information in a package we find cognitively appealing.
If so, what can we use instead of rote to promote deeper learning? Proactive and interactive methods. One proven method is the gamification of the educational experience.
The one I used for this project was narrational storytelling. Humans are strangely addicted to stories and spend much of their spare time engaging with exciting narratives. From the earliest tribal campfire stories to the rise of Netflix, there are few pastimes we enjoy more than digesting a good story. And of course, children love a good story. Whether it's the traditional bedtime tale or a Dora the Explorer on the iPad, narratives keep children occupied and happy. Of course, if a bit of learning occurs in the process, all the better.
Writing Educational Narratives
The good folks at ryco.io are well aware of the importance of stories. Therefore, they asked me to develop a narrative to accompany every class's social studies and science curriculum. That meant coming up with 12 stories related to the main topics in the curriculum.
I didn't have to start from scratch, however. I was provided with six animated characters with some personality traits and even a couple of catchphrases. That made the task at hand far easier for me.
However, I did face the challenge of crafting narratives. I had total creative freedom to take the characters wherever necessary, to provide the students with informative and (hopefully) entertaining stories.
Where To Look For Inspiration
It isn't easy to describe the creative process. Nonetheless, I will do my best; I am a professional writer, after all!
Two documents were my nearest and dearest friends during this process. One was the point-by-point curriculum. It outlined the goals of each module and the content of the classes the students would take. That information allowed me to accompany the material with an appropriate narrational structure.
The other was the information sheet providing details on the characters. This sheet included some catchphrases and information on every character. For example, it told me that one character was sassy, while another was nerdy and talkative. The information was enough to stimulate my imagination without unduly restraining my creativity.
The next step is to employ the essential tool in any fiction writer's arsenal: empathy. A writer's grasp of empathy is two-pronged. First, you have to engender a strong sense of empathy with your characters. I tried to get a sense of the protagonist and the lives they lead. Developing this type of understanding is a bizarre process. In this project, the procedure invariably involved getting into the head of a talking animal.
Writing For A Talking Lemur
Take, for example, the first character I used: Lonnie the Lemur from Madagascar. He was the hero of the narratives designed for first-grade consumption, and I needed to make him compelling and appropriate to the student's educational needs.
I used my finely honed research skills and Googled lemurs. Apparently, they love to eat fruit and nuts. I can work with that, though it's a bit general. What if we get Lonnie into a specific fruit, one that he was borderline obsessed with? Not exactly an original notion; after all, Bugs Bunny loved his carrots and Garfield lasagna. Still, it worked for them, right?
I looked at the animation of Lonnie the Lemur and asked myself what he would like. He seemed like a cherry kind of guy. It also occurred to me that cherries were my favorite as a kid and are just the type of sweet fruit most children would like.
That brings us to the second form of empathy required for this job. Just as important as seeing the world through your characters' eyes is the ability to empathize with the target audience. It has been a VERY long time since I was in first grade. So, let's not discuss just how long, ok?
Nonetheless, it is my job to imagine sitting in a classroom with these students. Perhaps they wish they were anywhere else. Or maybe they want to concentrate on the material yet find themselves constantly distracted. I have to wonder what sort of story would break through the monotony and engage their attention.
I had already established the general outlines of Lonnie's personality. When you do that organically and successfully, the character starts to talk to you. I don't mean literally speak to you, of course. However, as the creative type, once the general parameters of the character are established, I can vividly imagine that little lemur reacting to differing circumstances.
Complementing The Curriculum
I could not afford to get too caught up in free-form storytelling. After all, the job is to help make the curriculum more accessible and memorable. That means the narrative must complement the curriculum as much as possible.
Now, I had to find a story that would express his inner truth while illuminating the curriculum as much as possible. The first-year topics for social studies included the following topics:
• What makes a family?
• Culture and family
• Customs and culture
The Cultural Significance Of Lonnie's Mother
Therefore, the next step was to imagine a story that would involve Lonnie interacting with different family and cultural structures. The general sketch mentioned that our lemur hero had a mother and siblings but no father. So, I imagined Lonnie's mother as a strong single-mother type. On an educational level, I could use that situation to foster well-deserved respect for hard-working single moms everywhere.
As we saw, the curriculum wasn't limited to the family unit. It also called for engagement with broader cultural norms and customs. For example, it occurred to me that if Lonnie's mother was the queen of the local lemur society in Madagascar, she could be the ultimate strong single mom while also allowing us a glimpse into political power and gender norms.
To contrast Lonnie's society's gender and power norms, I need a counterexample of different norms. So, how would Lonnie come into contact with a different community? Cherries, of course. I got Lonnie involved in trading apples for cherries with another lemur culture in Mozambique.
This plot device would allow the hero to contact other countries, societies, and social norms. It would also enable Lonnie to get more fruit, motivating him to learn about these different cultures. If I do my job right, it will also encourage the students to learn about other cultures!
Conclusion
The job was truly fun. However, it does not end here! Next, I will tackle the ELA and Math portions of the curriculum. I look forward to spending more time with these characters I have learned to love. I can imagine Lonnie solving a mystery by learning the difference between nouns and verbs or finding a treasure using the multiplication table.
Writing an educational narrative requires a delicate balance. I tried to follow my tried and true formula:
• Allow the characters and their motivations to come organically.
• Devise a plot that engages the characters with the main issues in the curriculum.
• Maintain the authentic creative voice of these fictional personalities in dealing with
them.
Hopefully, this healthy combination of storytelling and educational matter helps the students process material more organically and productively.
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