Lost Children of Kenya

This project is envisioned as a future assignment for any Social Studies class. No matter which specific subject I end up teaching, I plan on starting each day with a current events discussion. This digital storytelling project is meant to take my students one step further in having them really "own" one such event.

The Assignment:
You will be producing a documentary about any event that has moved you in the last three weeks. It is your job to create a compelling story that both informs and moves your audience. As such, you will be creating a fictional account, but one that is based heavily on facts collected from newspapers, magazines, tv news, etc. In other words, create a story that could have been.

In addition to creating a digital story, you will be responsible for providing the facts on which your stories are based. You will need to draw information from at least three different sources.

Before you start on your movie, make sure you can identify:

• your purpose
• the effect you wish to have on your audience
• why should the audience care?
• how is this problem bigger than the characters in the story?

The following movie, Lost Children of Kenya, has been created as an example for this project. Use it as a guide to expectations regarding your finished product.

Step One in this process is creating a visual portrait of the story (VPS) you wish to tell.

VPS for Lost Children of Kenya

I created a character named Rasina Saisi who witnesses the violence in post-election Kenya. I have detailed three of the problems she faces while living in Nairobi. Each event was reported in the news, and thus is something any Kenyan child could have witnessed. Unlike most stories, you will notice this VPS lacks a formal resolution. The violence continues, thus, so does the story.

Step Two is taking this visual story map and transforming it into a movie using Movie Maker or a similar program. View my completed movie at youtube.com. (One factual correction -the slide with the anlayst's estimate of national economic shrinkage should read "over the last six weeks", not three.)

The interview with Rasina is set to a photo montage. These were snapped during the five weeks following the Kenyan election. Some of the photos are from various websites, while others were scanned from a local newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News.

Reflection

Having actually completed this assignment, I can say it was a lot of fun, I learned some interesting things, and it is a project I am excited to undertake with my future students. I think they will really enjoy getting to put their own "spin" on a story while simultaneously learning about the situation.

Ideally, after showing his or her movie to the class, the producer would entertain questions from the audience. This will give the creator further opportunity to show off his or her knowledge as well as create dialogue and awareness within the classroom about geopolitical events around the world.

The tricky aspect of this project will be ensuring a balance between fact and fiction while students are developing their stories. *Let's not get completely carried away with the creative side now, folks.*

Movie credits:

Anchorage Daily News, 1/25/08 - 2/17/08

You Tube "Kenya Song"

The following websites: euronews, children of africa, daily mail, the sun, affordable housing institute, the razor, shanghai daily, jimmy mccarty, cbs news, boston globe, un4saken.net, itn.co.uk, ny times