Though I was lured into visiting this website because of the Pixar affiliation, the only thing Pixar about it is that they dissect “The Incredibles” with it. So even though not Pixar recognized, it’s still an interesting read.
Here’s the link: http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/06/05/back-to-the-story-spine/
The story spine is simple: (bolded words are the 8 segments of the spine)
The Incredibles
Once upon a time there was a superhero named Mr. Incredible who was forced to live as an ordinary man in a society where superheroes were outlawed.
Every day, he grew more and more frustrated with his stifling, boring life.
But one day, he accepted a secret superhero job from a mysterious stranger.
Because of that, he fell into the diabolical trap of this mysterious stranger who turned out to be Syndrome, a super villain with a long-time grudge against Mr. Incredible.
Because of that, Syndrome was able to capture and imprison Mr. Incredible.
Because of that, Syndrome could now put his master plan into motion by setting a giant, killer-robot loose on civilization.
Until finally, Mr. Incredible escaped from his prison and foiled the villain by destroying the giant, killer-robot.
And ever since then, he was loved by all and able to be a Superhero again.
I taught creative writing as a part of high school English for years and I’m ashamed to admit I never had something so easy to implement as the story spine. It would have saved a great deal of explication.
I’ll be reviewing this resource with Jason Ohler’s basic assessment traits:
Writing
The writing of the site, true to its intent, is easy and accessible. Part of the beauty of the information is how simple it is to create something as complex as a plot or narrative.
Story
For this criteria, I’ll dive into the actual spine. It’s quick to learn, easy to practice, and has surprising depth. I found it extremely useful in that I was able to quickly learn it and apply it. A great deal of the learning comes from trying to fit big ideas into such a basic story spine
Digital craftmanship
Fairly weak, but not the point. The story spine is so basic that it doesn’t need flashy visuals or media. The only thing thatI would have recommended around digital craftsmanship is to include the story spine as an HTML table instead of an embedded image; then people could copy and paste it and start filling in the blanks.
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist.Every day in college, I worked and studied to attain this goal.But, one day, a financial crisis struck, and the economy took a tumble.Because of that newspapers found it difficult to be sustainable.Because of that newspapers cut wages, eliminated jobs, and even folded.Because of that I was boxed-out of the industry.Until finally I found a job in e-learning.And ever since then I’ve worked and studied in the e-learning industry.
 |
| Alien Landscape For this week's DS106 Assignment Bank activity I chose to do a "Color Changer". In this assignment I had to select a picture and change the hue to make the picture look completely different. I call this "Alien Landscape". It looks like something right out of Star Trek or some other inter-planetary science fiction movie. The purple atmosphere and eerie blue glow make for a foreboding tale of intergalactic danger. Since I live in Utah, I chose a picture of Delicate Arch, not far from Moab in the southern part of the state. Utah has some of the most beautiful and unique landscapes in the country. If ever you get a chance to travel through Utah be sure to check out the national parks in the southern half of the states. Some of the rock formations, formed over hundreds of thousands of years, seem to take on other shapes - including arches, towers, animals, and even goblins! With today's technology, it's much easier to digitally enhance a background to make it look like something completely different. The entertainment industry is constantly seeking out locations that can double as some fairytale landscape. Here is another image of Utah:  This image is a scene from the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. At this point in the film, Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship are caught in some other-worldly dimension. In reality, the production company digitally place a pirate ship on the Bonneville Salt Flats - a large expanse of flat salt deposits in Utah. The thing about story telling is whether the story is told digitally or not, the key ingredient is always imagination. |
socially recognized ways in which people generate, communicate, and negotiate meanings, as members of Discourses, through the medium of encoded texts (p. 50).I love a sentence like this, each word chosen so carefully, concise as a poem. The sentence serves as a guide, it's a story unto itself. Some pieces of the sentence are familiar to me from other sources. I recognize the idea of generating and negotiating meanings from cognitive neuroscience, for instance.
Perhaps what is most important about literacy as a social phenomenon is that it enables people to do what cannot be done by orality alone (p. 40).It was the word "orality" that struck me, and made clear for me the contrasting idea of encoded texts. The third landmark was this phrase: "a particular 'configuration' of literary practices: a literacy (p. 49, quoting Barton and Hamilton 1998)." I actually read the colon as an equal sign. These three pieces from the chapter helped me to hold the chapter's main sentence (from page 50, quoted above) in my head.
