The context of my digital storytelling project is to create a piece of digital literature that would assist the transition of Year 7s during their first term of secondary school through an epistolic Twitter narrative supported by real world actions and consequences. By creating content for the school’s students, staff, parents and caregivers a connective framework of engagement and knowledge is constructed which provides a scaffold for the necessary conversations between and within these groups during this critical juncture. The top priorities of this work will be the early enculturation of engagement with the school library, welfare team, and sporting or recreational social groups. The secondary priorities will be to stimulate conversations between students, staff, and caregivers either online or in person as well as provide name recognition for key members of staff. The final priorities are to engage members of the community in this work of literature both as content consumers and content creators.
In alignment with the Australian Curriculum this work of digital literature will focus on implicitly presenting the General Capabilities through the lens of the Cross Curriculum Priority of Sustainability which is applied to all Learning areas. The work will therefore not be singularly Learning area specific but instead focused on the outcome of students understanding their place in the world and the resources and support available to them. The Australian Curriculum’s Organising ideas for Sustainability catagorised under Systems, World views, and Futures will be elucidated for the school environment with reference to larger and smaller scale relevant contexts. By situating the issues and solutions faced by our community within the school context in this way and being proactive in advocating for engagement, empowerment, and education as answers to both smaller and larger problems the sought outcome is to illuminate the pathways to resolve more complex problems both in the now and later in life.
The story will utilise the technological and storytelling abilities of a secondary school’s Teacher Librarian, with space for additional pseudonymous co-conspiratorial authors, to assist with the transitions of new Year 7 students across the 10 weeks of term 1 through communication with the intended audience of all the school’s students, teachers, administrators, and caregivers. Through an exploratory epistolic narrative the Year 7s will be introduced to the school’s places and people that are resources for them to draw upon while peers, parents, and staff will be prompted to empathise and communicate to support the Year 7s in the journey of their first term. Additional story elements will be delivered through a mixture of real world and digital channels. These will include: full school assemblies, school website, school newsletter, Parent and Caregivers association meetings, and real-time based real world interactive options at the sites where the greatest engagement is sought.
In addition to content representing pseudonymised students or staff created by the teacher librarian there will be opportunities provided for scaffolded content creation by students, staff, and parents which would be added to the feed at the discretion of the teacher librarian presented in the pseudonymous format in order to create intrigue into what content is from who it purports to be and what is not.
By introducing or refamiliarising the audience to resources including the school library, welfare team, social clubs, computer lab, and sports teams to students, staff, and parents at an early stage in the Year 7 transition the protective effects of social integration, developing friendships, and knowledge of where to access resources for school work or recreation will serve as a prophylactic against isolation, poor mental health outcomes, and falling behind on required work during the first term for the Year 7s.
The outcomes targeted are an increase of utilisation of the schools human and physical resources and a reduction of the initial and ongoing issues faced by Year 7s commencing secondary school. By providing a common scaffold for communication between students, parents, and teachers it is hoped that conversations will be stimulated that connect students who begin ignorant of what support is available in this environment with what will best serve them as students of the school and, in the future, citizens of the world.