BEA Ignite shares the best peer-reviewed enterprise ideas for the classroom. In the 2017 edition held April 25th, presenters had 5 minutes to share 20 slides of the top teaching ideas at the annual convention of the Broadcast Education Association.

1. BEA IGNITE
Will Hong
SUNY New Paltz
Using Storyblocks to Start the Conversation

2. BEA IGNITE 2017
WILL HONG, M.A.,M.F.A.
DIGITAL MEDIA AND JOURNALISM

3. USING STORYBLOCKS
TO STARTTHE
CONVERSATION
STARTATTHEBEGINNING
WILL HONG, DIGITAL MEDIA ANDJOURNALISM

4. PROBLEMSWITHTYPICAL ICEBREAKERS
• Generic and tired:“Tell us something about
yourself…”
• Awkward and uncomfortable: puts spotlight on
each student one at a time
• When it’s not your turn, you zone out, check
smartphone, don’t listen to others, simplyprepare
for your own turn
• Have nothing to do with course material

5. HOW DOYOU BREAKTHE ICEAND SETTHE RIGHT
TONE IN A STORYTELLING CLASSROOM?
• Must happen with the first class exercise
• Must be experiential where all students participate
• Must be relatively low-stakes
• Must engender trust in fellow students and
instructor
• Must have concrete pedagogical outcomes
• Must be engaging and fun

6. STORYBLOCKS ICE-BREAKER EXERCISE
FIRST DAYOF CLASSES
1. Divide the class in to groups of 4 or 5
students; each group has a collection of
6 or 7 story dice
2. Have them take turns rolling the dice
and making up a story aloud in 30 sec.as
fast possible without thinking
3. They then have 30 sec. to revisethe
story to make it“better”
4. Rotate, and the next student inthe
group gets a turn

7. START STUDENTSTELLING STORIES RIGHTAWAY
THIS IS HOW OUR BRAINSWORK
• A fun, low-stakes way to introduce the students to one another – “Ages 8 andup”
• Generally produces laughter and sets a positive tone for the semester
• Demonstrates first-hand the role and value of play in creative work
• Shows students not only that we are all “naturally creative,” but that we each are
constructing narratives all the time,that it is,in fact,how we make sense of the world
• I demonstrate first – good opportunity for me to show that getting it not quite perfect IS
ok – you learn from it and try again
• Excellent, experiential lead-in to talking about the fundamentals of narrative theory and
storytelling

8. PEDAGOGY
FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONSTO STARTTHE ENGINESREVVING
• Can we tease out elements then that are important to drama,common to many if not all effective stories?
• What characters were at the center of your stories?What point of view did you naturally adopt? 1st person or 3rd
person or even 2nd person? Did the character have a goal or objective?
• What was the first action in your initial story? As you quickly revised,did you reorder actions/events? If so,why?
Causality?
• When did the story start to make sense? When did it lose its way? Obstacles and reversals?
• When did the rest of the group laugh? Or gasp? Or lose interest?Why?What does this tell you about your“audience”?
How was that information valuable to you as storyteller? What did you“rewrite”?
• How might this exercise relate to how we experience campus life/culture/the world?Where do we get our cues/raw
material if not from storyblocks? What tools do we use to construct narrative for ourselves and to communicate them
to others?

9. APPLICATIONS
WHAT CLASSES COULD BEGINWITHSTORYBLOCKS?
• Digital Storytelling – Start with the story before you use the tools
• Performance –Vocalization,Rhythm,Inflection
• Screenwriting – Causality, Intentions and Obstacles
• Filmmaking – From raw material à make the edit and enthrall your audience
• NarrativeTheory – Character,Focalization,Storyworlds, Audiences,even Genre

10. VARIATIONSAFTER INITIALDISCUSSION
HOW CANYOUADD SOME SPICE?
• Start with a Set Genre – e.g. – Horror,Thriller, Romantic Comedy,Hard News
• Start with a Specific Setting – e.g. -Victorian England,The SpaceShuttle,Australian
Outback
• Start with a Set Character – e.g.– Bill Clinton,Oprah,your least favorite uncle
• Start with a SetAudience – e.g.– PrimetimeTVAudience,Political RallyAudience,C-
Suite Boardroom Audience,Audience of 8-year-olds