---
title:  Engaging Narratives
page_type: course
track: 
course_type:
feature_img: /assets/images/2018-19/t-1/engaging-narratives.jpg
img_caption: 
faculty: 
    - heather-corcoran
    - bjarke-calvin
    - tomas-diez
    - oscar-tomico
---

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## Syllabus 

### Day 1: Group debate and individual discussions

Refine your interest area, position yourself in the existing work, select the tools you will use, introduce your work-plan and documentation/distribution strategy. Articulate a narrative between these elements of your journey with a specific target audience in mind.

### Day 2: Practical Narratives Workshop with Kickstarter

The construction of thoughtful, compelling narratives should extend beyond the creative aspects of your practice. “Practical narratives” – the kinds of stories you tell in grant writing, fundraising, business proposals, pitches and more – can be some of the most powerful communications in your career. In this session, we’ll look at these kinds of narratives as an opportunity to invite your audience to get involved in your creative process, using the Kickstarter format as a new archetype to learn from. Workshop mini-structure:

**Context and analysis**

After an introductory lecture, we’ll look at good examples of project proposals, drawn from Kickstarter and other sources – and analyse them together. Why are they compelling? What are they asking for? How are they inviting a crowd or community into their process?

**Exercise 1 (in-class)**: Title, Subtitle & Lead Image

Using a project idea of your own, sketch out a compelling title, subtitle, and lead image for your concept

**Exercise 2 (take home)**: Outline or Storyboard

Develop this first exercise into a proposal outline, or storyboard

### Day 3: Presentation and discussion

Students present & discuss Exercise 2

One-on-one sessions

Time for follow-up and individual feedback on students’ own practical narratives

### Day 4: Tools for new engaging narratives

Duckling argues that social media in its DNA is built to divide us because it’s business model is based on micro-segmentation. So it’s unlikely that social media will ever become beneficial for us. We have to build an entirely new media category instead.

We call this next media category “Insight media,” and we built it on contextual and collective human thinking rather than personal promotion. We have made an app for Insight Media, which is called Duckling. Through Duckling, people create stories about their key insights, that are passed on, changed and expanded by the Duckling network. The result is ideas, insights, and inspiration that deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world.

**Mini-Workshop structure:**

General introduction to why documentary storytelling makes sense, why exactly now, and why in the Fablab context

A bit of hands-on theory on how to construct a good documentary story

Demo of Duckling and a small assignment

Briefing on doing small stories the rest of the semester, and what it will generate for the students and for all of us.

### Day 5: Student Showcase

Prepare a showcase of your narratives using computers and other types of screens in the classroom.

## Deliverables

One page text explaining your area of interest, and plans to execute it during the year. A short video (story) using social medial tools given in the class.

## Additional Resources

[MDEF Insights](http://duckling.me/interest/emergentfutures)

## Faculty

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