The rise in popularity of social media platforms and apps has opened the door for storytellers to deliver their content in inventive ways that let them engage with the audience. Transmedia storytelling is becoming a way of life for many who create content, but the definition of the phrase isn't always clear. Basically, it's taking a single story and breaking it down into pieces that are delivered via varying and multiple media platforms. Those platforms can include websites, films, YouTube videos, Twitter accounts, apps, paper brochures - you name it. Ideally, each piece of the story should stand on its own while also feeding into a bigger picture.
Transliteracy might provide a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century. It is not a new behavior but has only been identified as a working concept since the Internet generated new ways of thinking about human communication. This article defines transliteracy as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks" and opens the debate with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography.
A teaching strategy to help students make connections between the ideas in readings, their own experiences and beliefs, and events in history and the world. Facing History offers teaching strategies that nurture students growth; literacy and critical thinking skills within a respectful classroom climate.
By giving a purpose to students' reading (i.e. focusing students on paying close attention to text to find connections), this strategy helps students comprehend and make meaning of the ideas in the text. This strategy can be used when reading any text - historical or literary - and it can also be used with other media as well, including films. It can be used at the beginning, middle or end of the reading process - to get students engaged with a text, to help students understand the text more deeply or to evaluate students' understanding of the text.
Filmed July 2009 at TEDGlobal 2009
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story.
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice - and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.