Conceptual Age Curriculum Paper: Story

Ashley Cox

LTC 8740 Curriculum in Art Education

Spring 2015

When going to pick what senses chapter I wanted to cover after skimming
through the book written by Daniel Pink A Whole New World: Why Right-Brainers Will
Rule the Future I was automatically drawn to developing and discussing a lesson

based on Pinks sense of story. The word story has many implications in itself, which
allows itself to mold its story-like theme to any of the other senses that Pink mentions
in his text. As humans on this earth we acknowledge and respect the fact that stories
are an important part to identifying our distinctive cultures and ourselves.
Within the Pink text it discusses a multitude of stories and discusses the
important relationship that empathy and story have within one another. For instance, it
states that at the university of Columbia, all second-year medical students take a
seminar in narrative medicine in addition to their hard-core science classes. There they
learn to listen more empathetically to the stories their patients tell and to read those
stories with greater acuity (Pink 113). With this ingenious idea of having the Columbian
students better develop their story skills, both re-telling and understanding, they are
ultimately bettering the clients needs and desires by becoming a more empathetic
listener.
Throughout the Pink chapter one thing that really rung true was the quote We
are our stories. In this very powerful quote I felt that it encompassed so many different
aspects of what story telling is all about along with reiterating the importance of one of
Pinks senses meaning. A story is more then just regurgitating what someone told
you, its history, its a lineage of historical records, many stories hold deeper or spiritual
meanings. Without stories how would we be able to be where we are today? Therefore
when it comes to art and stories they go completely hand in hand and connect to all of
Pinks other senses such as design, symphony, play, empathy, and meaning. Knowing
that art and stories go hand in hand make creating a rationale and specific curricular

proposals for elaboration on stories seemingly endless. Thus, the big question is; what
is the best way to teach stories to a 21st century art room?
In the book it mentions narrative imagining these two words really struck a
chord with me and instantly had me on the idea of how I could develop a lesson based
on this idea of creating an image based on a narrative. Therefore, one way that I would
achieve this is by having students VTS an image and write down the ending story that
would happen with the image. From there we would put all the stories together and
create this culminating endless end of possibilities due to the variety of ending ideas.
Another lesson that I would plan surrounding around the idea of story would be
using fairy tales/super heroes/myths/legend to tell our stories. For instance, telling a
story where you can either submerge your own personal narrative into the story or
create an absolute alternate ending to the story; such as a twisted fairy tale/super hero
of sorts. Allowing students to immerse themselves into these classic stories and tales
helps them to begin thinking in the new national art standards mode; they are
investigating their findings, analyzing and working collaboratively, sharing, perceiving,
synthesizing, and relating. All these standards are hit easily due to the nature of the
project. Thus, allowing the project to interject deeper meanings into their life while
teaching them in a 21st century way.
Finally, a different project that we could do that would uncover the myth of story
would be to collect artifacts of their life and to assemble a narrative that would describe
them to a stranger. The questions that would be asked could include: What would you
find most valuable for others to know about you? What do you think the viewer would
find most interesting of your life? Would you include more happy/sad,

strengths/weaknesses in your story? What kind of memories would you feel comfortable
sharing with someone you dont even know? I believe that asking these questions has
the potential to help spark greater pings to other topics of discussion that revolve
around what should and shouldnt be in the narrative according to the student. I know
coming from a middle school standpoint my students would take great pride as to what
others perceive their lives to look like. So many of my students put on such a strong
social media front that I feel like they would become frustrated with having to face the
reality of which is their life.
One thing that I find most intriguing about stories is the variety of deliveries you
can present them. For example there are stories that have been written on manuscripts
many years ago versus stories that have been kept alive simply by word of mouth.
However, depending on which way the story is adapted it continues to send the same
message with the same intent behind it. Therefore when I read the Thomas and Seely
Brown text where they mentioned this idea of indwelling and according to the text it is
a familiarity with ideas, practices, and processes that are so engrained they become
second nature (Thomas 84). They later go on to mention that indwelling is an adaptive
process in which our everyday practices become innate that in turn helps us respond to
our environments when we need to change things up.
This idea of indwelling directly correlates with our knowledge of story because
our innate practice and need of story telling has always been the same but has adapted
to our 21st century lifestyles. Therefore we are seeing stories being told in 180
characters or less thanks to Twitters, or stories portrayed as statuses thanks to
Facebook, or simply viral photos that contain an image and a small blurb of text at the

bottom of the image; these are now our stories. We have adapted our traditional ideas
of story telling and connecting them to the 21 st century because we know that even in
our day and age stories are just as important now as they were hundreds of years ago.

Resources

Egan, K. (1989). Teaching as story telling: An alternative approach to teaching and

Curriculum in the elementary school. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pennebaker, J., & Seagal, J. (n.d.). Forming A Story: The Health Benefits Of Narrative.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1243-1254.

Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York:
Riverhead Books.

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination
for a World of constant change. Lexington, Ky.