Storytelling Can Change Minds?
For the Leap 2, “Collaborate and Create” assignment I worked with Maddie Cosgrove to investigate the “Feelings and Facts” topic. Prior to finding a partner for this assignment I considered each of the six topics using the Courageous Rhode Island, statewide media literacy initiative. I noticed that the majority of my classmates had chosen “The Influencers” as their topics so I immediately knew I wanted to do something different. After completing this week’s module I was very interested in the “Feelings and Facts” topic as it coincided with what we had learned about storytelling. I’ve always been someone who relied heavily on feelings over facts when it came to decision-making so I related specifically to this topic over the others.
For the collaboration aspect of this assignment I chose to work with Maddie Cosgrove. Maddie and I have been friends since freshman year as we shared similar classes and lived in the same dorm building. I didn’t know Maddie was taking this class until our second week of school so we got very lucky in finding each other to be partners for this assignment. To begin LEAP 2, Maddie and I first met in the library on campus to develop an outline for the project. Working as a team in a “power of two” was definitely helpful as it allowed us to be more creative by bouncing ideas off of each other. I think starting a project is always the hardest part as you have to decide what media form to use and how you want to outline your project. Maddie and I both instantly wanted to do the video media form as we had experience with making screencasts and admired the creative aspect of designing a PowerPoint and script. When it came down to doing research we definitely struggled in the beginning. This was a very vague and broad assignment so we had lots of creative choices in what we wanted to research and how we wanted to present it. After discussion we decided it would be best to break apart our overarching question and research stories, characters, and conflict separately and then build on how they each work to change minds.
After settling on a topic and media form it came time to actually do the research. As mentioned before, we started on the Courageous Rhode Island website. From there, we decided to split up the research in four sections. I researched stories and conflict while Maddie worked on the research for characters and decision making. For each of the topics we looked for a definition and also how they related to decision making and changing minds. For this part of the project we chose to meet in the library again as it was helpful to share our findings with each other as we moved along. If there was a time where I couldn’t find what I was looking for, Maddie would help me and I would do the same for her. We used a shared Google Doc to hold our sources and the information that we found. Additionally, we would make the citations for our own sources as we found them to collaborate on the “References” page. When we felt that all of our research was completed it came time to organize the information we found into an outline. We used the same Google Doc and worked together to piece the information together in a way that made the most sense.
After the outline was completed we started the creative process of choosing a presentation outlet. Rather than using Google Slides we decided to use Canva as there were more animations and elements we could add to it. This was the most fun part of the assignment as we were able to be completely creative with the theme of our presentation. We looked through quite a few but decided on a blackboard theme using various chalk drawings which we felt matched our research. We worked together slide by slide to create the perfect flow that included all of the necessary information. When our presentation was completed we began working on the screencast.
Working in a “power of two” was honestly the most helpful for this part of the assignment. We shared many laughs and frustration over trying to learn how to successfully make a screencast, however, after a few attempts we figured it out and it was time to record! It took us about five recordings to create our best work but we were very proud in the end. All in all, the LEAP 2 assignment definitely challenged my abilities and pushed me to try something new. I’m very happy and proud of the work we were able to create!
View our project here!
