Stories for Change

Tomorrow I join the RJs in their First Year Seminar, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” to introduce them to digital storytelling.  It’s become a focal point of the RJ capstone experience in senior seminar to create a digital story.  Building on student enthusiasm for the work and the really great storytelling that’s come out of the senior seminar, FYS instructor Chaplain Bredlau and I decided to try digital storytelling in the first year as well.  Most RJs are familiar with my research and practice in digital storytelling, especially with community teens.  After more than a decade of digital storytelling with youth, and about six years of digital storytelling with Muhlenberg College students, I’m deeply convinced that these digital media technologies and practices hold out real potential for documenting and creating change. A new website, www.storiesforchange.net, explores these possibilities and offers many useful resources that RJs can draw on in their digital storytelling work.  A goal is to create a website with all of the RJ digital stories that have been created in the last three years and into the future.  I look forward to watching the graduating seniors stories take shape (and sound), and now I am eager to see how the work takes shape with the first year RJs.