The Digital Memoir in English 101: A Worked Example

Dabian Witherspoon

I.

INTRODUCTION
This project began when I had a meeting with Professor Keith Mehlinger at
Morgan State University about working on a digital media learning project for my
English 898: Independent Study graduate course. Professor Mehlinger is an Associate
Professor in the departments of English and Mass Communications. He is also Director
of the Digital Media Center (DMC) and Director of the Screenwriting and Animation
Program at Morgan State University. After meeting with Professor Mehlinger, I came up
with the idea of having each of the students in one of my English 101: Freshman
Composition classes create a digital memoir, a short video companion piece for the
written memoir essay that I usually assign in the course.
This digital media learning project is not a formal study. Rather, it is a worked
example, which is an experimental activity that is useful in itself but might also lead to a
broader, more formal and qualitative and/or quantitative study.

Certainly, the introduction- body-conclusion structure involved in writing a

formal essay is similar to beginning-middle-end structure of writing a story in three
acts. Students in one of my English 101 classes are required to create a video companion
piece for one of their essays, the memoir. This worked example addresses the following
questions:

(1) Does requiring an audio-visual component such as digital storytelling to supplement a

written essay assignment engage the students more than just writing the essay?
(2) Do students perform better overall when they must meet this expectation? Compare
diagnostic essay grades from the beginning of the semester to the final grades for the
memoir essays.

II.

DIGITAL MEDIA LEARNING: A BRIEF BACKGROUND

Professor Mehlinger and I also discussed ideas such as participatory group
learning, universal themes, critical thinking, social and political themes, students as
critical citizens. Per his recommendations, I went on to review the various resources to
explore ideas and possibilities. The websites I reviewed included the following: Center
for Digital Storytelling, MyYearbook.com, Channel1101.com, YouthRadio.org, Mobltz,
YouMediaChicago.org, EdGames, Twitter (possible feedback deviceproven
unnecessary with daily classroom contact with me).
In addition, I reviewed articles/white papers and books such as New Digital
Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and Worked Examples as One Way
Forward by James Paul Gee. A linguist and a Professor of Literacy Studies in the
Department of English at Arizona State University, Gee discusses the worked example in
digital media learning and gives examples such as using the card game/cartoon Yu-GiOh! to gauge younger students combining of digital and non-digital media, interaction
with global youth culture in a global world, and relevant language styles inside of and
outside of school (Gee 58).

Moreover, I reviewed the documentary Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st
Century (2010), of which James Paul Gee is also a contributor. This documentary focuses
on several ideas for digital media learning such as the use of photography, video projects,
and games. A key concept in these approaches is that students learn more thoroughly
when they must teach or present what they learn to their peers, and they perform even
better when they believe that an even wider audience might eventually see their work.
This is related to another concept discussed in the documentary, the focus group. In focus
groups, students meet amongst themselves outside of class, either in person or via social
media. Students benefit from these types of interactive, shared spaces (Digital Media).
This documentary emphasizes that digital media learning is not a replacement for
traditional classroom learning. Instead, it is an effective supplement, especially
considering the increasingly importance of people being capable of solving problems
now and in the future when they encounter things that do not yet exist. Nicole Pinkard is
the founder of Digital Youth Network and a visiting Associate Professsor at DePaul
University. According to Pinkard:
Literacy has always been defined by the technology. Right before the
printing press, your ability to orally recite something meant to be literate,
and so as technology has made things cheaper, were now saying well,
hmm, is someone literate if they cannot critique media, take media in, if
theyre only taking in traditional texts? Thats the question to answer
today, but what will that mean in 2020? I would venture to say that they
wont necessarily be considered as being literate. (Digital Media)

Traditional learning and digital media learning must co-exist. Hence, scholars and
educators who appear in Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century agree that
educators must find ways to coordinate traditional learning with digital media learning
(Digital Media).

III.

PREPARATION
Professor Mehlinger and I discussed collaborating with the DMC in order to make
sure the class would have the necessary video editing software and lab space to work on
the actual video project. I selected Final Cut Pro 7, which was already available, and the
DMC staff set up room 233 in the Communications Center.
I chose my 3:00 PM class to participate in this experiment or worked example
based on the following factors: a class time that would avoid conflict with the needs of
other instructors and class size, which would minimize the necessity of students having to
share a computer, since Final Cut Pro would only be installed on 10-15 computers in this
lab.

IV.

INTRODUCING THE PROJECT TO THE CLASS

The Digital Memoir Essay
First, I introduced the memoir essay to the students through a PowerPoint lecture
(see Appendix A) and a class discussion. I assigned the students to read the chapter in
their textbooks, The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Handbook (Second Edition,
2009) on writing a memoir.

Although I acknowledged the relationship of a memoir to a biography, I defined

the memoir more narrowly for the purpose of this assignment. Hence, I defined the
memoir as a short narrative about one specific life-changing event or decision. It has a
simple main idea or topic. We briefly reviewed the choosing a topic and generating
ideas lessons from earlier in the course. As covered in the PowerPoint presentation, I
also encouraged students who were having trouble choosing a topic to look through their
old photos, in print or digital, because every photo has a story attached to it.
One possible topic was to write a literacy narrative, which is centered on one
experience in learning to read or write between early childhood and the present. Another
example is the My Happiest Memory is essay. Of course, other options were
limitless.
I also structured the memoir to fit the structure of a formal essay, and posted it on
Blackboard for the students. It has an introduction and a conclusion, and the meat of the
story is contained in the body paragraphs. In the conclusion, the students must explain
why the experiences or decisions still matter to them today. Although it represents only
one to write a memoir, this particular structure also helps students keep their stories
tight and limits the chance of wandering. Since this guide itself is narrow, I instructed
the students to apply the skill of creating a detailed outline that we covered earlier in the
course. One day during class, I created a new sample outline specifically for this memoir
essay based on a topic that my students and I came up with on the fly.
I explained that we would complete the written essay and then, work on the video
version. I emphasized that creating a three-act story is similar to writing an essay with a
three-part thesis. I required the students to submit their topics for my approval and gave
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them one week to submit their first drafts for my feedback. I also gave them advance
notice that they would need to obtain a flash drive, preferably 8MB or larger (but no less
than 4MB, considering their budgets).

Introduction to Digital Storytelling

I also conducted brief lessons in digital storytelling and showed the students
several examples that would be similar to their assignment.

Center for Digital Storytelling

Communities of Color Intro
Examples of Videos Created by Students
Helpless
Fish
Other Video Examples from YouTube:
We Wear the Mask by Morgan ENGL 542 students and the DMC (demonstrates
combining personal photos with Google images under fair use.)

Story Structure
Episodic vs. Three-Act
Syd Fields Three-Act Paradigm
Applying the Three-Act Paradigm to The Shawshank Redemption

V.

BEGINNING THE VIDEO PROJECT

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I provided students with guides for adapting the written essay to a video project
(even though I ended up letting the students just read their essays after I gave them
feedback on their rough drafts). See Digital Storytelling A Short Memoir (The Video)
outline
The actual video-making process was divided into three parts: pre-production,
production, and post-production.

Pre-Production
Of course, the video production must begin with the script. Hence, I advised students
to slightly condense their original memoir essays. At the minimum, I required them to
make revisions based on my feedback to their written essay rough drafts. I explained that
I would meet with them separately in a different room to record them reading their
essays.
Next, I instructed the students to collect stills or photos that fit their stories, using
their own photos and Google Images. I emphasized that they should search for images by
theme in order to complement their personal photos and add a metaphoric quality to their
videos.
Students were also required to select instrumental background music (no lyrics),
preferably in mp3 format. Music samples fall under fair use based on non-profit and
academic usage. We discussed the fact that software would be available for converting
files to mp3 format, if necessary. I emphasized that the mood of the music should match
the mood of the story. Most of the students selected only one music sample, which was
perfectly fine, especially for such a short project. However, one student actually chose
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three different pieces of musicone for the beginning, one for the middle, and one for
the end of her video.

Production
First, I instructed the students to open new project files in Final Cut Pro and to go
ahead and save them to both their flash drives and their desktops. Then, the students had
to upload their photos from their flash drives to the bin sections of their project files.
In Final Cut Pro, the work in progress must be placed on separate audio and video
timelines. The software allows students to keep previewing their videos in progress
from a separate preview window after rendering the audio and video files on the
timelines.
Next, the students alternated between dragging their photos from their bins to
their video timelines (V1) and having their narrative recording sessions with me.
Using a portable Zoom recorder in the second-floor conference room (to reduce
background noise), I recorded each student who has had active attendance in the course.
Only one student had a complete recording in one take. Most students required 2-8 takes,
and their completed narratives had to be pieced together smoothly, removing the Student
Name, Take 1, etc.) from 2-5 separate parts of the narrative.
As each student completed the narrative recording, I saved the narratives to a
folder on their desktops and copied them to a folder for all students on a central
computer. Then, the students saved them to their flash drives and opened them in their
bins in Final Cut Pro. DMC staff and I showed them how to mark in and mark out
in order to remove the take information from the beginning of each part of the narrative
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as well as the mistakes at the end of a take. Then, the students dragged them to the audio
timeline (A1).
Next, each student loaded the instrumental music mp3 from the flash drive to the
bin section of the project file. DMC staff and I showed the students how to move the
music sample from the bin to the middle window, select only the part of the music
sample they wanted, and drag it from the bin to the audio timeline (A2) just beneath the
narrative recording. Then, the students had to loop or recopy the music piece, as
necessary, so it would not run out before the narrative ends.
Sound had to be adjusted on the narratives and the music to make sure the
background music did not drown out the narration.
The photos had to be rearranged on the video timeline in order to make sure they
appeared on screen during the appropriate part of the story. Many had to be resized by
simply moving them temporarily and dragging one end of the photos. Once all photos
were in the correct place and stayed on screen for the right amount of time, we worked on
cuts or transitions such as fades between the photos.
Students had to create a Title page and a Credits page and insert them on the
video timeline. I required the credits page, even if it does nothing more than state
Written by (students name) and give credit to the music they used. Special thanks
could also be added there.
Each student watched his or her complete video preview to make sure it flowed
smoothly.

Post-Production
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After the students double-checked their videos for continuity, picture quality, and
sound quality, they converted their Final Cut Pro project files to a standard video format
(MPEG or Quicktime) that could be played on YouTube as well as computer media
players such as Windows Media Player and Apple Quicktime.
After converting to video format, we checked the video and sound quality one last
time. If necessary, we made adjustments back in the Final Cut Pro project file and
reconverted to MPEG (.mpg) or Quicktime.
Each video was uploaded to YouTube and sent to me as a website link. According
to the individual students preference, a video could be marked in YouTube as public,
private, or by invitation only. If not prohibited by file size limitations, the actual
completed videos were sent to me by e-mail as well.
Finally, students presented their videos in class.

VI.

STUDENT TIPS FOR WORKING EFFICIENTLY

During the process of making the videos, I gave the students useful tips about
cyber security/safety and working efficiently. Regarding downloading Google images. I
advised students to run virus scan manually after you download files. This is also good
advice for using flash drives on different computers.
I advised students to save every file they would need to complete their projects
(essays, photos/stills, narration files, and music files) to their flash drives and to back
them up by copying them to a hard drive, portable drive, or another flash drive as soon as
possible.

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I emphasized that it was important to save the actual working video project files
(Final Cut Pro) to their flash drives, to e-mail it to themselves as a back-up, and to save
them to their desktops as well.
To prevent wasting flash drive space, I urged them to remove the word copy
from the end of the file name. Otherwise, they would end up having multiple copies of
the same file.
Render all audio and visual elements during each class session, especially after
changes are made, until the project is complete and ready to be converted to MPEG or
Quicktime format.

VII.

MY INTERACTION WITH STUDENTS/PROJECT ASSISTANCE FOR STUDENTS

I provided assistance as much as possible. I brought in DMC staff when students
had questions that I could not answer.
I took photos of the students while they worked in the lab. One of the students, a
photography student, took photos as well.

VIII.

CONCLUSION
Students Response to the Experience
The students seemed to enjoy writing the memoir essay, and they seemed to
appreciate that part of the assignment. However, when I first announced the video
project, the students were not excited. To them, it must have seemed like extra work
made worse by their uncertainty and lack of experience. It was understandable,
considering the fact that only one of them had ever made a video before and the fact that
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none of them had ever used Final Cut Pro before. The first few days in the lab, during
which they received an introduction to the software, were no different.
Once the students began uploading their photos from their flash drives to their
project files, they became completely absorbed in the assignment. They were a little
nervous during the taping of their narratives, but they were completely absorbed again as
they added music to their projects. The students understood that they must balance the
remainder of the semester between the last two essays (argumentative and literary
analysis), which were unrelated to their memoir videos. The class exercises, including the
debate of their topics in class for argumentation and the viewing of a film in class to
assist with literary analysis, led up to the due dates for these last two essays. Even though
the students enjoyed these things, they were much more interested in getting back to the
lab to continue working on their digital memoir projects.
Although the students had to rush to finish, they were pleased with the results of
their finished video projects. They were proud of themselves and supportive of one
another when it came time to view them as a class.

Essay Comparison
Findings/Results of the essay comparison
As stated earlier, each student wrote an essay as a Pre-Test or diagnostic essay at
the beginning of the semester. At the end of the semester, I compared each students
diagnostic essay score (0-100) to the memoir final draft score (0-100).

Recommendations
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In order to incorporate DML in an English class, the instructor would need an

assistant (a student assistant such as a TA or a lab assistant dedicated only to that
particular class). The process is time-consuming and difficult to complete within one
semester. The students need time to adapt to the software, and recording time is even
more costly.

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Works Cited
Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century. Dir. Drea Cooper. The John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation/The Pearson Foundation/Cisco Networking Academy/Adobe.
PBS, 2010.
Gee, James Paul. New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and Worked
Examples as One Way Forward. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation/Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.

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