TOWARDS DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN
THE EVOLUTION OF STORYTELLING FROM THE MIDDLE AGES
- Middle Ages - Oral Tradition
- 1400-1500's - Instruction
- 1600's - Enjoyable Learning
- 1700's - Introduction of Adventure
- 1800's - Storytelling that Delights
- 1900's - Too Much, Too Fast
- 1970's - Multimedia Mix
TOWARDS DIGITAL STORYTELLING
- Writing Programs and Sites for Children
- The Digital Story–Writers Wanted
Links
Links will be provided for key words and ideas in the essay. They are marked with an asterisk in the text but can only be accessed from the link column.
Richard Scarry's Best Reading Program
Oregon Trail
for young writers
Creative Writing For Kids
Kids on the Net
George Landow
Towards Digital Storytelling
For the most part, digital narrative for children is a reiteration of existing books or informational and instructional materials based on books as in the programs described above. This is the case even though there are such books as Annie and the Wild Animals, by Jan Brett, which, with its "behind the scenes" storyline, seems a natural for hypertext development. It seems inevitable that at some time, children's authors will have enough familiarity with the medium to take advantage of it. But currently that's not the case.
Ahh, you say, what about "Arthur". Well, there are "Arthur" situations, but there are no "Arthur" digital stories. It is unfortunate the writer has not chosen to take his character and write about him in a digital environment. But it is also telling. As mentioned in a preceding paragraph, the distractions of the medium have diverted writer's attention from developing stories for it. (Marketing men and software developers don't help the situation.)
Instead, the digital environment and its contents are being developed by non-storytellers: software technicians, graphic designers and educators. They are not developing stories because they are not story writers. Rather they are developing learning activities, games and simulations.
But if children's writers aren't writing hypertext, children are certainly learning about it.
Writing Programs and Sites for Children
Children's writing and storytelling abilities are being improved through use of programs as simple as Richard Scarry's Best Reading Program which provides reading, writing, and phonics and American Girl's Amelia which provides an interactive notebook for creating a journal; or as complex as Theatrix which provides the opportunity to write, direct and play animated shows with talking characters developed by the user and Oregon Trail which provides the opportunity to direct a family through the trials of a trip on the Oregon Trail in the 1800's. These all have some elements of hypertext and provide worthwhile digital writing experiences.
The internet provides sites for children such as for young writers and Creative Writing For Kids. These are fairly traditional sites that are formatted as newsletters with links. Children can read about current writers, post their own writings (traditional text), talk to other children about writing, learn about grammar, spelling and syntax and link to other sites such as Arthur. These are useful activities, and because the sites develop a familiarity with hypertext systems, teach children about the nature of hypertext and how to move around in it. Most of the writing help on these sites is limited to assistance with grammar and spelling, not assistance with how to write a story in hypertext or hypermedia.
I have found one internet site which provides children with experience with hypertext narrative. Developed by trAce, an international community of writers on the internet with headquarters in Nottingham, England, the site Kids on the Net* was created to encourage children to explore the world of digital writing. They have had success with children writing hypertext and posting it on their site. A new program on this site, Kids' Castle invites children into a castle about which they can learn and in which they can build a story. The program was put together by a writer who has both writing and computer experience (a duality such as this is often found necessary in threshold activities in many different fields). It is quick to get on, fun to read, and encourages children to dive right into the stories and activities.
The Digital Story--Writers Wanted
In the early days of print the content of books was dependent on an earlier form, oral tradition. In these early days of digital media, the content of digital narrative is drawn primarily from the earlier tradition of printed books. As mentioned previously, the complexities of the digital environment have distracted writers from using it to develop narrative. For the most part writers use the computer as a word processor rather than as a story developer. The technology required to develop a hypertext or a hypermedia document is more complex than using a pencil or a typewriter, but not very much more complex than using a word processor. What it takes, however, is a different mindset. One that sees the potential in the stories which can be told rather than in the difficulty of the technology, or the difference in form.
An important underlying aspect of today's narrative "industry" (for industry it is) is its collaborative nature. At the start of book publishing , one individual had the vision and control. He compiled or wrote the materials, printed the books, distributed them. As the industry grew, its complexity increased, more individuals became involved in the process and it became collaborative in which the writer was a partner.
Each new medium also moved from individual to collaborative effort as it evolved. This situation is compounded in the digital environment. Whereas in book publishing the technology of writing and then producing that manuscript as a book was relatively simple, the development of narrative on the computer requires many different elements. A key element is the program with which the writer develops the story. He who writes the program sets the direction or the pattern of writing...think about this as we continue.
In 1994 George Landow, a key hypertext theoretician, provided an explicit reason for writers to do work in the new medium. In conclusion of a discussion on the extensive use of hypertext in his book Hyper/Text/Theory he says, "That aircraft, airline, and other industries whose technicians must perform as knowledge workers have turned their attention to hypertext manuals has several implications for literary and cultural theory, the first of which is that many people not usually thought of as professional readers or knowledge workers will spend many years of their working lives experiencing text long before most scholars of literature and culture become aware it exists... if those interested in literature and culture do not make their needs felt, the only hypertext systems available will have been shaped by the needs of those not primarily concerned with creating, studying or disseminating cultural artifacts."
Every medium has its learning stage and this is the liminal time in the development of digital literature for children. Do we want technicians to continue to develop our computer paradigm and to limit our creative potential? Where are the visionary and adventurous writers who will take us "where we have never been before"?
Writers don't need to be technical to take an interest in digital narrative. Airline technicians didn't develop programs themselves...they provided input about their needs and programmers developed programs to satisfy these requirements.
In order to fully develop the capabilities of the digital medium for storytelling, individuals need to have exposure to its possibilities. Which becomes a chicken and egg scenario--no stories to explore, no interest; no interest, no stories to explore. Unfortunately, this goes further, because if there are few good hypertext or hypermedia stories written for children by children's authors, and children continue to be exposed only to computer books, games and simulations, developed by programmers...what will our future writers be like? Ann Terry says in Weaving Charlotte's Web "The key to providing children with a firm literary foundation for writing their own stories is an obvious one: Provide children with a wealth of rich book experiences" (Hickman & Cullinan 51). It is an obvious one for digital narrative as well.
Johanna Drucker said in her talk "Form and/as Information" at the Digital Arts Conference in Atlanta in October 99, and I paraphrase: "These people (computer scientists) have a belief that they are totally right and theirs is the only way. They have created a mythos that the technology has the answers. They have a total belief in their system and they have convinced us of their way. But theirs is only one way and because of their fervor, there is only one way to stop them...whack the mole back!" (And she made a suitable whacking motion.)
Let's whack the technocrats back. Let's encourage writers of children's books to explore digital storytelling and determine what they need to make great stories. Let's encourage them to develop wonderful stories in this medium so that we have a body of work which children can access, get excited about, and learn from. And we'll whack the mole back to his place.
It took the printed book 400 years of cultural evolution to come to terms with its potential and to have free reign in the children's narrative area. Caxton, Comenius, Swift, Newbery, Caldecott, Carroll and many others explored the possibilities and created changes which pushed the new medium onward. Individuals committed to an idea made the difference. I can only repeat what I started out with in my forward: If we want to influence the growth of digital narrative we must guide the process by providing tools and encouragement to the developers of children's narrative, and good examples of narrative to the future developers and current readers, the children.
With the perfect vision of hindsight we should be able to explore digital's potential for narrative in less than 400 years
