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Using
Storyboards:
Thinking Through Visual Storytelling
A storyboard is simply a planning device used to visually "sketch out" the actions of a story that will be told in a visual medium like animation, multimedia, a Web page or video.
Storyboards are linear because they tell a story that runs along a straight line from beginning to end. When telling complicated or multistep stories, however, it can be helpful to begin with graphic organizing techniques, using idea organization programs like Inspiration or the outlining functions in presentation programs like PowerPoint or HyperStudio.
Some storyboards are very simple; for example, a simple animation project, such as a flip book of a dot moving across a page, can actually be the storyboard for later creating an animated GIF on the computer. On the other extreme, storyboards for a video need to include not just the action of characters in a scene but placement of lights and camera as well. Long before you get to those sophisticated storyboards, however, you should introduce the basic storytelling concept with an activity like the one below.
A Storyboarding Activity
| Overview: |
In this project, you will lead a discussion that helps students explore aspects of a story they may not have noticed immediately, such as how it develops, what's missing, the use of language, how words and pictures work together, and what the story means to them. |
| Step 1: |
Create a panel book from a text that uses large pictures to tell its story, such as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Keep each sheet of the panel book separate and tape them to the wall in sequence, or tape them together in accordion fashion so that you can hide certain pages when showing others to the class. Either system works, but the latter can be beneficial if you want to dwell on individual pages before showing what happens next. |
| Step 2: |
Read the story aloud to the class from a third copy of the book. Everyone should know or have heard the story before moving on to discuss the panel book. You should have prepared yourself for the discussion by putting together a few questions in advance. |
| Step 3: |
Now, step through the panel book aloud, page by page. When finished, ask the kids what questions they have about the text, in any order, interweaving your own questions about the book, pictures and story. Remember, as discussion leader you must be a facilitator only. Be careful not to ask leading questions or to insert your own opinions or interpretations. This is a discussion-building exercise intended to help guide the children's insights by fusing interpretive questions based on information in the story, rather than factual or evaluative questions. Here's more on the art of asking good questions. As kids ask questions and as they respond to you and each other, they will notice things they never did before.
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| Step 4: |
Now ask the children to take a piece of blank paper and drawing tools. Ask them to draw one picture from the story that they think nobody else will draw. Emphasize that qualification: something that nobody else will draw. Stress also that they are not allowed to talk while they are doing it, and for a little while longer as well. Yes, that's difficult, especially for little kids, but it's just for a while—tell them that the project will be fun. Give them several minutes to draw the pictures. |
| Step 5: |
Now, gather the kids and have them join you on the floor or in some other large, open area—still without them talking. As a group, you are going to put the pictures into the proper sequence silently, just by pointing. |
| Step 6: |
Talk again and ask questions about the sequence. You've created a storyboard. |
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Other Resources |
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