Mapping, Core, and Boards... Oh My!

Though a story can be filled with many events, those events are created by a story teller who goes through numerous "events" themselves to imagine the twists and turns of their story. Jason Ohler introduces, in chapter five, ways to begin creating a story. He goes into detail about components of story creation, such as the story core, story mapping, and story types. Story core is described as a hero's journey where a writer will show "how people change, learn, and grow because of the challenges and opportunities in their lives" (loc. 1064). Carrying on, Ohler goes into depth and emhasizes how the planning process of the story core is a way for teachers to transition away from a unit of instruction and allow for actual learner development of understanding the story form (loc. 1100-1106). Story types are concerened with actual elements in a story and story mapping would use those elements to plan out a writer's story.

It is easy to tell that Ohler is motivated and passionate about storytelling with the depth he went into in chapter five. However, the complexity of his method of story planning does not seem realistic for classroom implementation. The intensity of his pedagogical approach eludes that a lot of time needs to be spent on teaching students how to create meaningful stories. As most of us teachers are glued to our TE's and have principals breathing down our necks, it would be hard to instruct students to be as passionate as Ohler is when writing. Furthermore, the creative process needed for this type of writing is not encouraged in public education. Public education tends to focus more on non-fiction reading and interpreting (summarizing), at the elementary level, before allowing for creative writing. Sorry to say, it is the world we "teach" in and I wish there was more promotion of this thought process at an earlier level. My suggestion for Ohler would be to break this process down by age appropriate levels so that by the time they reach a point in education where the creative process is encouraged, students will have a greater understanding and appreciation for planning and writing stories.