Story Graphs

Activity Summary: For this activity, I assign students two podcasts in which a narrator tells an emotional story. I have students fill out the worksheet on the next page, identifying three moments in which they felt moved or touched. When students come into class, I hand each student three Post-It Notes. They write their three selected moments for a given story and then place these Post-Its on the story’s timeline, which I have drawn on the board. The result is a graph—a kind of affective histogram—of our class’s emotional response to a story. This graph opens up conversations about why these moments touched us, what about the speaker’s voice made us feel connected (or disconnected), and how different stories use different approaches to emotionally engage their listeners. I use this activity in both literature and rhetoric/composition courses.

Graphing Stories: Emotion, Voice, and Storytelling Listen to the two podcasts/radio excerpts posted on the Modules section of ICON. For each story, identify the three moments in which you were the most “touched” or emotionally moved. Love and Radio, “The Living Room”

Time Description of Moment Example: 2:43

When the storyteller talks about…

The Moth, “Franny’s Last Ride”

Time Description of Moment

Flip over for questions!

Consider and reply to the following questions:

1. How do you think your experience of these stories would change if you had read them, not listened to them?

2. How did each of the two storytellers’ voices affect your experience of the stories? Think of several specific moments from the stories when voice seemed especially important.

3. How do you think your experience of these stories would change if you’d heard the stories told in person?