Need story boO!!Mm!! ? Simply upright mR. bEn BloOm !

 

In Chapter 8 of Jason Ohler’s Digital Storytelling in the Classroom (2008), the author suggests that the most compelling stories are based on compelling transformations – first with the hero in the story, then hopefully with the affected reader as well (pg.107, para.1).

So how do creators of DSTs embed necessary transformations within our stories? The same way story writers always have – by simply adding some Bloom to the central character’s background theme of personal growth (pg.108, para.1). Then hopefully the magic of the readers’ mind and human nature take over, creating a compelling story.

(Fig.1. Does your story core turn Benjamin Bloom
upside down?, Google Images, 2012).

Ohler suggests that character transformations within stories are both identifiable and therefore definable; indeed, great and moving story transformations are creatable! The author presents several tables that specifically list key character-story transformations: The Eight Levels of Character Transformation, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive “Transformation”, and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Affective “Transformation”. 

The figure below is this author's attempt to depict Ohler's contentions - but in a visual way. And now we can see that Hero's are never static (like boring data tables). The most compelling story heroes are quite alive! - constantly transforming! - with emotional learning spirals! 

Epic stories can now be seen as moving in-and-out-and-in-and-out-and-in-and-out-and-in-again, along something this author has coined Ohler-Bloom Story-Spirals.

Perhaps when used as a design and writing tool, mapping stories using Ohler-Bloom Story-Spirals might result in a sort of cognitive-affective-psychomotor character-clarity, something not only hard to capture with text alone, but also difficult to simply imagine.

With O-B Story Spirals however, a story's cause and affect interrelationships can be more clearly mapped (and planned); and hopefully result in stories, or digital stories, that are not only easier to write and create,  but inherently compelling as well.

How? Imagine if you were to replace the green "level" descriptions on the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor O-B spirals, with instructional units. In other words, learning units tied to story-lines, tied to clear character transformations that are thought to really work!

(Fig.2. The Heroes' Ohler-Bloom Story Spiral. Reproduced from K.M. Day's notes, 2012).