Finding the “Teachable Moments” in Interactive Storytelling
- By Jenny Parker
- January 12, 2008
We recently discussed what makes a story instructional and educational, as opposed to mere “edutainment”. Another great strategy for making your story (and its characters) as instructional as possible? Identify the optimal “teachable moments” found in your story. With apologies to Quentin Tarantino, these moments are best found in the traditional story structure of beginning, middle, and end.
Beginning: Think about the opening to Hamlet. This is when the ghost recounts the tale of foul play that sets the rest of the story in motion. Likewise, this is the moment when users will naturally expect background information and key concepts. Like the ghost in Hamlet, characters that act as a guide to help engage the audience fit in naturally here.
Middle: This is the stage to present processes and procedures, where the user can carry out actions or make decisions and experience consequences and outcomes. Interactive characters can now act as mentors, posing practice problems and presenting interim assessment challenges and feedback.
End: Principles are best driven home at the story’s conclusion. Think how Aesop’s fables always end with a “moral”; here, the interactive character can summarize learning, provide final assessments, and guide the learner in recognizing key principals.
For a great example of a project that puts these “teachable moments” to work, check out our interactive exhibit, Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads, developed for the National Constitution Center. After guiding users in a brief overview, our virtual Abraham Lincoln acts as a mentor and seeks out the user’s advice in a series of key history-making decisions. Each ‘episode’ reveals whether the learner/visitor agreed with Lincoln’s actual decision, providing immediate feedback and reinforcing important historical facts and overall concepts.
At the conclusion of Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads, the virtual Lincoln tells the player how often the two of them agreed on decisions. Learners are then encouraged to explore (though not necessarily change) their judgments. Web links provide for further investigation of the events dramatized by the exhibit.
For more about finding the “teachable moments” in your story, check out Juan Leon and Matthew Fisher’s 2006 paper, Interactive Educational Storytelling.
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