Part A Context for digital story
Outline of the subject area
The digital story covers Hans Christian Andersen’s early life, the adversity he faced and his maturing into one of the most famous and prolific writers of children’s stories. It will briefly touch on how his stories have been adapted by many other writers over the years, have been adapted into feature films, and will briefly touch on the stories’ emotional range, from funny to sad and the morals and values presented in them.
A second part of the digital story will be more functional; it will show how to search the library catalogue, in this case, for works by, or about Hans Christian Andersen, or adaptations.
The final section of the story will show the affection and esteem with which H C Andersen is held, by showing images of statues erected to honour him around the world, and includes a link to an online jigsaw puzzle.
Intended purpose
It is hoped that by telling a moving story about Hans Christian Andersen’s impoverished and difficult childhood, and highlighting briefly some of his famous original stories (and the many adaptations by other writers), children will learn about a classic children’s writer and his stories. Those stories – many nearly two centuries old – are excellent for their emotional depth and range, for the morals and values they convey and for their evocative imagery, sympathetic characters and compelling and complex storylines.
In a public library context, the intended use of this digital story will be slightly different to how it might be used in an educational context. The digital story could be placed on the “e-resources for children” menu, on the public library’s OPAC (open public access catalogue), as an introduction to classic children’s writers and their works, and could be part of a series on classic children’s writers. The digital story also includes guidance on how to use the library’s catalogue to search for a writer’s works. This digital story could remain on the library’s OPAC indefinitely, since H C Andersen is now an historic figure, whose life story and body of work is complete.
Another purpose for the digital story could be extending a virtual storytime. Public libraries have, during the COVID-19 pandemic, been forced to cancel in-person public programs, and have turned to creating online, virtual storytimes, including for school-aged children, particularly during school holidays. There are many contemporary adaptations of any number of Andersen’s stories which would be suitable for reading in a virtual storytime; and the virtual storytime could be extended with a link to the digital story, for further engagement with the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s life, his fairytales, other adaptations and functional instruction in how to use the library’s catalogue and reservation service. A series of virtual storytimes could be created with a different Hans Christian Andersen story read each week, and with a link to the digital story included.
This digital story could also be used in the context of a school classroom or school library. It could be used in a unit on classic children’s literature, and after students have experienced the digital story, they could be set the task of creating their own story on a writer of their choosing. They would expand their knowledge of a favourite writer by having to research and create a narrative about that writer, and they will gain new digital skills in the use of a tool such as Sway, as well as being creatively engaged in making decisions about how to make their story engaging, with images, text, sound and hyperlinks.
Intended audience
The intended audience will be children in primary school, and potentially their parents or carers. It is most likely that the digital story will be accessed outside of school hours, when children are at home or visiting the local library after school. Local schools may want to use the digital story in a teaching unit, or as a way to encourage awareness of, and use of the local library outside of school hours. Children in this age group are “beginning to make cognitive connections between their concrete world and concepts” (Combs, 2016, para 8), and should be entering an age where they will begin to appreciate some of the more emotional and poignant aspects of the story of Andersen’s life, and may feel motivated to seek out his fairytales for their own reading. And by way of making a connection between what they are reading, doing and using at school, the local library can reinforce this and offer further instances of interaction with digital literature.
References
Coombs, B. (2016). Digital literacy: A new flavour of literacy or something different? Synergy, 14(1), https://search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/fullText;dn=216725;res=AEIPT