Cade Saenz

MYP: An Explanation of Storytelling

Words

Hilton Head High School

2017
Cade Saenz

Mr. Joel Klock

Economics Honors

March 8, 2017

An Explanation of Storytelling

Summary: The goal of my project was to create a website that could provide the basic tools for

understanding and executing a great story. Additionally, one of my goals for the website was to

help myself better understand storytelling because I would like to have a future career in writing

fiction, most likely in film. I divided the website into multiple categories and elaborated on

elements of each category.

Criterion A: The Global Context that I chose for my project was, Personal and Cultural

Expression, because stories have been embedded in culture for millennia. Another reason I

chose that Global Context was because all mediums that are used for storytelling are infused

with culture and you can personally express yourself by conveying your own personal problems

and struggles in a story you write. The main part of my Global Context that I focused on was the

part about expression through aesthetic creativity because as I previously stated, many authors of

stories develop a conflict based on past experiences. I chose stories as my personal interest topic

because I strongly believe that my future career involves stories in some shape or form (Journal

Entry 2), hopefully I will be the author of my own scripts and possibly Ill direct those as films

as well. I had very little professional knowledge prior to this project; however, I had just started

to personally research the art of filmmaking and screenplay writing. Excluding my new

researching, I had a moderate amount of previous experience, buy I did this project in an attempt
to learn more about storytelling. This interest or topic directly relates to the Global Context

because stories are all expressive of the creator in some form. My inquiry question that I

designed from the Global Context and topic was, How do you explain how to express ideas?

Criterion B: The specifications I put in place to help myself successfully complete my

investigation was the extent of which I could say what I learned (Journal Entry 5). I decided to

collect and use professional and/or subjective primary resources because art is an extremely

opinion-based topic. Difficulties I experienced with collecting resources was collecting a large

number of them; I was able to collect strong, trustworthy sources; however, I could not find a

myriad of sources. The one printed resource I used was a book about the art of writing dialogue

in the four main mediums that I had gotten for my birthday prior to the project for my own

personal research use for my hopeful career. Unfortunately, I was unable to achieve any human

resources for my project. I wanted to interview the Hilton Head High School drama teacher, Mr.

Triolla, but I could not find the time during my investigation to do so. The rest of my sources

were electronic sources such as trusted professional writers magazines, blogs, and publications.

The way I made decisions on what information to use and discard in my project was based on the

credibility, matching info with other trusted resources, and reliable user/peer opinion (Journal

Entry 8 and 9).

Criterion C: The exact process that I took to accomplish my project was research, website design,

and final report planning/writing. For the first five weeks (Journal Entry 4) I completed journal

entries and researched or collected sources for my writing on the website. Afterwards, for one

entire week I worked on the website. For that week, I designed the structure of the website with
different table of contents I wanted and the ability to go on to the next section, amongst other

things. Additionally, as I researched I planned out how much I would write on each topic and

what elements of each category I would describe to my audience. Once I was finished with

writing every webpage on my website, I started work for two to three weeks on my final report.

A small part of my completion process was preparing what I would do for my presentation which

I decided on simply clicking through my website and explaining briefly all the parts and

explaining in-depth any requested information from my audience or teacher. The only problem I

had encountered was Google Sites was not able to achieve what I wanted to do with my website

and I was forced to use a website creator that was able to do what I wanted, but was blocked on

my school tablet (Journal Entry 7 and 10). Special techniques I developed as a result of the

investigation were mainly in the form of dialogue structure and content, as those were topics I

learned most in-depth. Other techniques I learned included how to determine the amount of time

I should dedicate to a topic based on the amount of research I gathered. I did indeed alter my

original goal with this project. Originally, the goal of my project was to create a website only to

teach the fundamentals of storytelling; however, the project evolved into a website simply

explaining the fundamentals of storytelling with the main goal in mind being my research

process for the project to help me prepare for a future career. Additionally, one of my ideas for

my MYP was to write a full screenplay, but I decided it would end up being an amateur product.

The level of achievement I would award myself, based off the rubric and IB grading scale, would

be a five out of seven.

Criterion D: What I learned from my project was how to explain to someone what I want to do in

life in a simpler and more detailed fashion. The answer to my inquiry question, How do you
explain how to express ideas, is you should explain the elements of the mediums used to

express the said ideas whilst giving known examples about each of the elements. The way I

answered my inquiry question was by objectively observing the way I wrote on my website. The

aspects of the project that helped me get a better understanding of my topic, stories, was writing

the information out on my website and researching the information that I had to explain during

my presentation. Personal and Cultural Expression is now more defined for me because of my

project. Now that my project is complete, I understand that expression is an extremely subjective

topic amongst all cultures and persons (Journal Entry 3). According to my self-assessment

specifications, I feel like excelled in what I wanted to accomplish. During my researching

process, I learned an ample amount of information on what my future career needs to know and

what skills I should shine in. Next time I do a project of this scale, I would narrow down the

topic a little bit more to one broad topic. For example, for this project I should have narrowed

down my topic to one medium (film, theatre, etc.) and done research extensively on the process

of creation and the subjectivity of said medium. Some specific skills I needed to apply for

completion of this projects were researching, judgement, and interpretation of subjective

material. New skills I learned from my investigation were dialogue structure, the meaning of and

how to evaluate subtext, and how to establish mood/tone and how it can affect a story and its

setting. An existing skill I improved upon was my writing intensity, Ive never written on a

singular topic so much. The format I used for my journal entries was I hand wrote them out first

as I was completing the project and then towards the end of the websites creation and the

projects completion, I created a group of webpages for the journal entries (Journal Entry 1). The

most important part of my project, in my opinion, was the fact that through all this research I was

thoroughly interested which means that I am positive that I want writing to be my future career.
The MYP project has helped me reinforce the idea of my hopeful future career. Throughout the

project, I exhibited the IB traits of Reflective and Thinkers. Reflective because I was looking

back on all my research and writing through the course of the project and I was analyzing my

thought process of my writing afterwards. Thinkers because I had to solve problems with my

website designer and problems with what I should include based on the amount of research. All

of the IB learner traits I practiced, I definitely improved on. An action that I, or others, could take

based off of my investigation is trying to create a screenplay or work of writing based off of only

the fundamentals supplied to them. In fact, I plan to write my own screenplay over summer

break, perhaps I will write multiple throughout the year; however, I plan to read another book

written by Robert McKee called, Story, and then I will be more prepared to succeed. My final

thoughts on my experience with my project is that it was a fun and interactive practice and

definitely prepared me for the future with my career and the IB diploma.

Journal Entries:
1. I plan to set up my process journal by handwriting it, in complete sentences and lists.
After, or before, I finish the MYP project I will create a webpage with all journal entries
on it.
2. The purpose of my project is for people to understand how storytelling can help you
enjoy writing, and what the fundamentals of good storytelling are. However, what I hope
to achieve, for myself, is a better understanding of myself and storytelling for screenplay
writing (my future career).
3. The Global Context, Personal & Cultural Expression, is visible in my project because
storytelling changes based on its form, personal meaning, and where/when it is being
told. The Global Context enriches my MYP by focusing it more on the expression of
storytelling, and not the technique.
4. The timeline for my project includes researching the entire time I am creating the
website, and staying on schedule
-Week 2: Journal/Research
-Week 3: Journal/Research
-Week 4: Journal/Research
-Week 5: Research/Website
-Week 6: Final Report
 -Week 7: Final Report
-Week 8: Final Report/Practice Presentation
5. The way I will measure the success of my final product is the grade, how it improved my
writing, and my amount of satisfaction for completing it. During the evaluation of my
project (final report) I will talk about what I have learned from my research.
6. Some adults/mentors that can assist me in my MYP are Mrs. Kimberlee Smith & Abby
Smith. Mrs. Smith can help me because she has had two daughters do MYPs and has IB
training. Abby can help me because she has already done a MYP, so she knows the
process.
7. The only materials I need and already have are access to a website maker (Google or
Weebly).
8. I will select my sources based on credibility and popularity. Already I have some books
written by the most popular and reliable writing lecturers.
9. -Dialogue by Robert McKee
-Story by Robert McKee
-Interviews with novelists
-Interviews with directors
-Interviews with game developers/writers
I will know if these sources are credible by checking where it comes from.

10. The only other additional resource that I will need is a website maker: Google Sites,
Weebly, etc.
 Works Cited

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Klems, Brian. "6 Ways to Write Better Bad Guys." WritersDigest.com. Writer's Digest, 06 Dec.

2016. Web. 08 Mar. 2017.

Schilf, Michael. "Plot: Five Key Moments." The Script Lab. The Script Lab, n.d. Web. 08 Mar.

2017.

Ward. "Tone and Mood." Tone and Mood (n.d.): n. pag. Fall River Schools. Web.

<http://www.fallriverschools.org/Tone%20and%20Mood%20words%20(unedited).pdf>.

Welty, Stefanie. "Elements of a Short Story." Literary Elements: Plot and Conflict. N.p., 2009.

Web. 08 Mar. 2017.