Telling Compelling Stories

Last weekend, I coached a group of 8 young students who won the "Judge's Award" at a statewide LEGO robotics tournament in Fairbanks, Alaska. Our young team won this award (and a wonderful LEGO trophy) because they were able to tell a compelling story to the judges. Last September, an 8-year old student (with some help from his 11-year old brother) wrote a persuasive letter to our school principal asking him to find the funding for a LEGO robotics club. Last weekend, the students explained how this persuasive letter created opportunities for 18 young LEGO fanatics, and allowed our team to win a qualifying event, which resulted in funding for our participation in the state competition. Since our club started in late September, we have enjoyed five months of hands-on, challenging learning experiences with LEGO robotics materials. These learning opportunities were the direct result of one person's compelling story, written as a persuasive letter, which set everything in motion.

As a language arts teacher, I want students to understand the power of well-written and well-told stories. Even if the students are dreaming of a career in films, game design or another entertainment industry, they need to learn how to appreciate, analyze and write compelling stories. If they want to create an award-winning game, they need to use the age-old elements of a compelling story design when creating this game. If they want to persuade someone to bring their amazing game design concept to the market, they need to understand the age-old techniques of story-telling and persuasion. I found three important ideas in the Groh articles about the film-maker as a story-teller: find the “so what?” element of your story; start the story at the point where your audience cares about something important; and find a way to condense your story (or lesson or grant proposal, etc.) into two sentences in order to understand the answer to the question, "so what?"
Now, how do I use these arguments to motivate my Sophomore English students to write their best essays about Shakespeare's timeless drama, Hamlet? How do I answer their "so what?" question about the need to respond to this powerful drama in the form of a five paragraph essay? Good question....