Kate McDowell on Storytelling

In a short paper for the journal Education for Information, called "Storytelling as Non-Textual Pedagogy," I describe some of my course themes, related assignments, and assessments for those assignments. This blog post offers a quick look at three of the assignments for my storytelling courses to augment that forthcoming paper. Three assignments: 1. Future File assignment 2. Storytelling in Professions paper 3. Storytelling apps posting 1. Future File assignment Your future file is a long-term tool for you in your career as a storyteller. During the semester, you should read as many stories as possible from various genres and cultures. Keep a file of those stories you might like to tell, including folktales, picture book texts, personal tales, fairy tales, myths and legends, and selections from contemporary literature. These might be stories you forsee using in the future for library programs, curriculum enrichment, literacy promotion at festivals, or stories that y...

"Story before storage" has become my catchphrase for addressing a big issue with nonprofit data. In my consulting work, I've seen this problem over and over in data collection approaches used by nonprofits. The problem is that nonprofits are collecting and storing data that they have never told as a story or used to connect with stakeholders. When we say "data-driven decision making," there is an implication that the data tells the story, that all our stakeholders need is access to the complete data and they will be able to see our story. This is as ineffective as imagining that all someone needs to understand how to operate complex machinery is a detailed diagram of the engine, gears, and pedals. At worst, we collect data, maybe make some decisions, and then store it without ever telling the story of why we made those decisions based on that data. When you move from data collection to storage without letting it inform a story that your stakeholders can see an...

Storytelling Your Career: Finding the Stories “But I don’t have any stories!” As a storytelling professor, I’ve heard this many times, and every time I have the same thoughts: everyone has stories, but some people just haven’t noticed them or developed them yet. While we tell stories every day, we may not think of them as such, nor do we structure them in ways that would make sense beyond our closest friends and loved ones. But the good news is that our minds inherently think in story. So, whether or not we know it, we all have plenty of stories to tell. Mining Your History for Stories When the pressure is on, especially when we are launching new careers or contemplating big transitions, it can be much harder to identify the stories we need to tell. For this kind of storytelling, we want to mine our successes, triumphs, and learning experiences. After all, we want to present our work in the best possible light while being truthful about our experiences, free from exaggeratio...

Sometimes the most basic forms of creativity are the most difficult to master. For many of us, this comes up when we attempt to tell the story of our career, whether aspirationally or in retrospect. In forms such as cover letters, personal statements, or research/teaching statements, we strive to mobilize our stories.   We attempts to go beyond flat descriptions of our goals or accomplishments and toward a vivid sense of our commitments and abilities in action. This is usually much harder than it sounds. Stories are about action. True stories from our own experiences require us to step outside of ourselves and focus on what these stories mean about us from the perspective of someone else. That someone else may be considering hiring us, evaluating us, or trying to assign us work that best fits with our abilities. In other words, they are taking action. We tell our stories to show how we are able to take action to gather data, solve problems, and advance the mission of our workp...