Week 5 Digital Story Critique - Katrina

If a hurricane could speak what would it say? Kevin Cordi asked his student. At the beginning of a digital storytelling instructional process, Kevin asked her if a book about Katrina was missing anything. She wondered what he meant by this. Kevin continued, "What story is not told here that you can give a voice?"

In the book, the effects of Katrina are shared with readers through the voices of the two main characters, twelve-year-old Lanesha and her older caretaker, Mama Ya-Ya. Justine initially wanted to speak to the spiritual nature of the work since Mama Ya-Ya acts as a mystical character in the novel.

Upon reflection, Kevin had the insight to identify Justine's emotional attachment to this narrative. As they talked, he asked, "What if the hurricane could speak? What if the hurricane could tell part of the story?"

She responded, "But it does not speak." Kevin informed her that in her role as a digital storyteller, she could give the hurricane a voice. She took off with this idea. In her video, she created a different-colored font for the hurricane; and as the hurricane heard and saw Lanesha's story unfold, it shared its thoughts. We heard what it was like for the hurricane to take lives and destroy property. The presence of the hurricane is powerful when reading the novel, and Justine used this in her video to give the hurricane an even stronger voice.

I evaluated this story on the following traits:

Originality, voice, creativity - The storyteller immediately aroused my curiosity with a quiet, personal, first person narrative. I loved the simple text on screen introduction and how it dovetailed into the perfect song for this story. The parallel dialogue between the hurricane and Lanesha works well. Giving the storm a point of view was clever and creative. The storyteller actually evokes sympathy for the hurricane; "the levees were supposed to stop the water, who would have known they would break" said Hurricane Katrina.

Flow, organization and pacing - This story was well planned. I thought for a brief moment it was going to be text on screen; which would have quickly lost my interest. Then the first of an amazing series of photos flashed upon the screen. I was feeling this story.

Project Planning - Everything from the watery transitions to the photographs, music, and placement of the text contributed to this powerful narrative of mother nature run amuk. There was clear evidence of storyboarding, scripting, or some other type if visual layout prior to production.