Schedule

Designing Stories

Your Skill Progression Through the Semester

The three projects build from focused observation to increasingly complex digital storytelling:

Project 1: PHOTO STORY
observe → capture → select → sequence → interpret

Project 2: VIDEO STORY
investigate → structure → capture → edit → publish

Project 3: RICH MEDIA STORY
map → research → gather → integrate → experience

You will move from discovering a story within one place, to building a story through time, to revealing networks of relationships through maps and rich media.

Across the semester, you will strengthen your skills in observation, media capture, story structure, editing, and digital production.

The Place Of Imagination

Place-based storytelling begins with paying attention. A familiar forest, street, shoreline, farm, neighborhood, or gathering place can hold stories of memory, change, conflict, connection, and possibility.

Throughout the course, you will study how photographers, filmmakers, journalists, and multimedia creators use images, sound, text, and maps to reveal what might otherwise remain unseen. You will then apply these approaches to places you know, using creative media to connect local experiences with larger cultural, ecological, and social patterns.

By learning to look closely, capture thoughtfully, and shape what you discover into a story, you can help audiences see familiar places in new ways—and imagine what those places might become.

PROJECT 1 — PHOTO STORY

Evoking Place: A Story of One Place

Format: Photo-based digital story using approximately 8–15 original images with concise text/captions.

Place can be broadly defined: a neighborhood, street, forest, river, lake, shoreline, farm, trail, workplace, gathering place, building, campus location, small town, or other meaningful Maine location.

The goal is not simply to show what a place looks like. Use photography and storytelling to investigate what happens there, who or what belongs there, how it is changing, and why it matters.

Project 1 Skill Progression

Week 1: Look → explore possibilities
Week 2: Observe → capture broadly
Week 3: Discover → find the story
Week 4: Select → sequence → shape
Week 5: Revise → publish → reflect

The essential lesson is:

Don’t photograph your place as scenery or as tourist. Spend enough time with one place to discover the story already happening there and your personal connection to it. 

Week 1: Learning to See Place

Project Introduction

Question: How can a place become a story?

Introduce digital storytelling, course themes, and place as protagonist.

Learn

Do

  • Register for class Website.
  • Explore photographic stories about landscape, community, ecology, and change.
  • Compare photographs that merely document a location with photographs that suggest relationships or stories.
  • Discuss possible Maine or other places close enough to visit repeatedly.
  • Practice framing, composition, light, distance, angle, foreground/background, detail, and point of view.
  • Take a short exploratory photo walk.
  • Identify 3 possible places you could investigate.

Media skill: observation + basic photography
Story skill: recognizing story possibilities

Project 1 Prep

Review course readings & videos. Explore possible places. Spend time there. Get the vibe and find the story. Snap a few practice photos. Try the Photo Story Template 

Week 2: Explore & Photograph — STAGE 1

Question: What becomes visible when I spend time in one place?

Learn

Do

  • Select one Maine place for the project from your trials.
  • Make additional visits for listening and photo (and short video clip) capture. 
  • Capture a broad range of photographs:
    • establishing views,
    • medium views,
    • close details,
    • people or signs of human activity,
    • plants, animals, water, weather, or other ecological relationships,
    • patterns, textures, objects, and traces of change.
  • Experiment with time of day, angle, distance, orientation, and composition.
  • Record observations and questions while on location. Notice any changes in yourself as you spend time in a place.
  • Follow Project 1a instructions.
  • Begin Shorthand exploration. 

 

Media skill: deliberate image capture
Story skill: observation + finding a focus

Project 1A Due 

First photo collection + story pitch.

Week 3: Find the Story — STAGE 2

Question: What is this place actually about?

Learn

Do

  • Share initial photos in small groups.
  • Look for recurring characters, relationships, patterns, tensions, histories, or changes.
  • Distinguish place/topic from story.
  • Identify a central story question or idea.
  • Expand Shorthand layout & design.
  • Determine what additional photographs are missing.
  • Return to the location for more purposeful photography.
  • Research or gather limited contextual information when useful.
  • Begin sequencing images into a possible beginning, middle, and ending.

Possible approaches might include:

  • a place changing over time,
  • people and nature interacting,
  • a hidden ecological relationship,
  • belonging or community,
  • work and livelihood,
  • memory and history,
  • restoration or stewardship,
  • conflict over how a place is used,
  • an overlooked ordinary place worth seeing differently.

Media skill: purposeful capture + image selection + shorthand practice
Story skill: focus + visual sequence

Project 1B Due

Story direction + second photo session.

Week 4: Shape the Place Story — STAGE 3

Question: How do photographs become a narrative rather than a collection?

Learn

Do

  • Select approximately 8–15 final photographs.
  • Edit photographs for clarity, consistency, and impact.
  • Arrange images to create rhythm, progression, and discovery.
  • Experiment with opening and closing images.
  • Write concise captions, text or short passages that add information the photograph cannot provide on its own.
  • Develop a title and introduction.
  • Refine the digital story layout.
  • Participate in peer critique.

Peer feedback

  • Is there a clear sense of place?
  • Does the sequence reveal something?
  • Are there enough visual varieties—wide, medium, detail?
  • Do images and text complement rather than repeat one another?
  • Does the story show relationships rather than simply scenery?
  • What remains unclear or missing?

Media skill: image editing + layout
Story skill: sequencing + image/text relationships

Project 1C Due

Complete draft + peer critique.

Week 5: Publish & Share Place — STAGE 4

Question: What does this story help someone notice about Maine?

Learn

Do

  • Revise photographs, sequence, captions, and text.
  • Check image quality, credits, permissions, and accessibility.
  • Publish the finished shorthand photo story.
  • Present the story briefly to the class.
  • Explain:
    • why you chose this place,
    • one thing you discovered by returning to it,
    • one important photography decision,
    • one important storytelling decision.
  • Respond to classmates’ stories.

 

Class/Post reflection

  • What did you notice on your later visits that you missed the first time?
  • Which photograph does the most storytelling work, and why?
  • How did sequencing change the meaning of individual photographs?
  • What media-capture skill improved during the project?
  • What would you do differently if you photographed this place again?

 

Project 1D  Final  Due

PROJECT 2 — VIDEO STORY

Place & Change

Format:
Create either:

  • a short video story exploring place OR
  • an updated Shorthand multimedia story combining photography, text, and substantial video

Your task is to expand your creative options either with the same location–exploring more deeply–or a new location.  Project 2 builds directly from the photo project by asking you to explore time-based story using visual media. Think about how to add sequence, movement, character, sound, pacing, and narrative arc. 

Project 2 Skill Progression

Week 1: Time → move from image to sequence
Week 2: Observe → capture a specific place
Week 3: Discover → find the story
Week 4: Design → sequence → shape
Week 5: Revise → respond to feedack →  publish → reflect

The essential lesson is:

How does your personal relationship to the place evolve over time as you engage with it? Your camera, and your ability to listen and observe over time are critical to finding the story.  

Week 6: From still to moving images

VIDEO Project Intro

Question: What changes when a story unfolds over time?

Learn

Do

  • Compare photo storytelling with sequential storytelling.
  • Analyze short photo/text, multimedia, and video models.
  • Identify openings, characters, setting, conflict/question, change, and endings.
  • Explore Shorthand or review Davinci Resolve..
  • Review video capture and sound basics.
  • Experiment with sequences of 5–9 shots/images.
  • Brainstorm several local story possibilities.

Media skill: Move from capturing a moment to constructing an experience.
Story skill:  Capture changes over time

Project 2 Prep

Scout locations and themes for Video Proposal, sample clip(s), and shortlist of model & characteristics.
 

Week 7: Story Hunt & Media Tests — STAGE 1

Question: What can you see, hear, feel? Who or what can carry this story?

Learn

Do

  • Choose a subject and story question: This Changes Because.
  • Identify audience and intended effect.
  • Scout & visit the location.
  • Conduct exploratory observation/interviewing if appropriate.
  • Capture sample photographs, video, ambient sound, or interview material.
  • Test framing, camera movement, interview location, microphone distance, and lighting.
  • Identify a storytelling model whose techniques could inform the project.
  • Submit a concise story pitch plus sample media.

 

Media skill: experimental capture and video techniques.
Story skill: Finding the change that matters.

Project 2A Due

Video Proposal, sample clip(s), and shortlist of model & characteristics.

Week 8: Build the Story — STAGE 2

Question: What belongs, and in what order?

Learn

Do

  • Develop a storyboard, beat sheet, or multimedia page outline.
  • Establish beginning → development → change/discovery → ending.
  • Identify required photographs, shots, interviews, sounds, facts, and transitions.
  • Practice B-roll and sequences.
  • Practice recording useful natural sound.
  • Determine where text should explain and where images/sound should carry the story.
  • Make a targeted capture list for the next field session.

Models:

  • NYT Op-Docs can model efficient editing and strong narrative arcs,
  • National Geographic provides models for balancing information with emotion.


Media skill: Production discovery & planning
Story skill: Narrative structure and development

Project 2B Due

Project storyboard and annotated test video clips.

Week 9: Capture & Rough Cut — STAGE 3

Question: Does the media actually tell the story we planned?

Learn

Do

  • Complete primary field production.
  • Capture interviews, photographs, video, sound, and B-roll as needed.
  • Organize and label media.
  • Build the Shorthand draft or video rough cut.
  • Compare captured material with the storyboard.
  • Identify missing material.
  • Conduct peer critique based on:
    • clarity,
    • pacing,
    • character,
    • place,
    • sensory experience,
    • emotional movement.
  • Create a specific revision/capture list.


Media Skill: production + editing + problem solving.
Story skill: Turning visuals, audio into story.

Project 2C Due

Additional photo, video, audio capture, Storyboard update and video rough cut.

Nov. 3 — Week 10: Edit, Publish & Reach an Audience — STAGE 4

Question: What does the audience need—and what can be removed?

Learn

Do

  • Capture missing media — photo, video, audio.
  • Tighten sequencing and pacing.
  • Add/refine titles, captions, narration, transitions, and credits.
  • Mix and balance sound where applicable.
  • Check accessibility, permissions, sources, and captions.
  • Publish the finished video or Shorthand story.
  • Share work in class.
  • Complete a brief reflection identifying:
    • strongest capture decision,
    • strongest story decision,
    • biggest revision,
    • next production skill to improve.


Media Skill: production + editing + problem solving.
Story skill: Turning visuals, audio into story.

Project 2D Final Due

Capture any additional video or audio needed. Make final edit with audio, titles, transitions, credits and any sound effects.

PROJECT 3 — RICH MEDIA STORY

Mapping Relationships: A Living Landscape

The final project asks you to synthesize your photography, writing, video, audio, research, editing, and storytelling skills in a more complex spatial form. The goal is to move beyond documenting or capturing landscapes toward revealing your (or their) relationships, histories, ecological systems, and future possibilities.

Some models you might use for inspiration include: 

Project 3 Skill Progression

Week 1: Space → move through time and in space
Week 2: Deepen → your awareness should deepen and grow
Week 3: Map → use story to map the links in time and space 
Week 4: Design → convey meaning to an audience → shape the experience 
Week 5: Revise → get & use feedack →  publish → reflect

The essential lesson is:

Good stories require deep and prolonged engagement with your subject(s). Notice the changes in both yourself and your ability to perceive aspects of the location. Places are not merely backdrop, they are always communicating. Consider ways other photographers were able to combine personal imagination with hearing the local landscape. What can you hear and how will you tell that story of that?

Week 11: Storytelling in Space —

Rich Media Intro

Question: What can a map reveal that a linear story cannot?

Learn

Do

  • Explore exemplary ArcGIS StoryMaps.
  • Examine map stories as narratives rather than illustrated reports.
  • Identify how geography can reveal movement, relationship, change, memory, conflict, or possibility.
  • Create an ArcGIS StoryMaps sandbox.
  • Experiment with:
    • images,
    • text,
    • video,
    • audio,
    • maps,
    • sidecars,
    • scrolling,
    • themes.
  • Brainstorm several stories whose geography matters.

Goal: Think spatially rather than simply placing Project 2 onto a map.

Media skill: Practice Storymaps in Sandbox
Story skill: Mapping out a story in both time and place.

Project 3 Prep

Plan place-based story proposal, with media and research plan for StoryMap, 

 Week 12: Map the Story — STAGE 1

Question: Where does the story happen—and why there?

Learn

Do

  • Select a final topic.
  • Define the central story question.
  • Identify important places, routes, boundaries, relationships, and changes.
  • Create an initial story map or spatial sketch.
  • Conduct field reconnaissance.
  • Capture test media at key locations.
  • Identify historical/community/ecological information needed.
  • Develop a media-and-research collection plan.

 

Media skill: spatial thinking + field research.
Story skill: mapping a story space in StoryMaps

Project 3A Due

Place-based story proposal, with media and research plan for StoryMap, 

Week 13: Gather the Landscape — STAGE 2

Independent fieldwork / Thanksgiving week

Learn

Do

  • Gather original photographs, video, ambient sound, interviews, and observational material.
  • Research historical or ecological context.
  • Verify locations and map information.
  • Organize sources and permissions.
  • Build a complete story outline.
  • Decide which information belongs as:
    • map,
    • photograph,
    • video,
    • audio,
    • quotation,
    • explanatory text.
  • Begin assembling the StoryMap.

 

Media skill: media collection + research + asset management.
Story skill: StoryMap Map Tours and Design

Project 3B Due

Design, choose theme for Storymap, gather needed media and create first draft of the story.

Week 14: Build Layers & Critique — STAGE 3

Question: Do the media, maps, and story work together?

Learn

Do

  • Bring a complete StoryMap draft.
  • Test map tours, sidecars, embeds, transitions, and other appropriate ArcGIS elements.
  • Conduct peer user testing.
  • Evaluate:
    • navigation,
    • story clarity,
    • visual hierarchy,
    • media quality,
    • map usefulness,
    • pacing,
    • accessibility,
    • ending/call to action.
  • Identify unnecessary features.
  • Create and complete a final revision plan.

 

Media skill: rich-media and research integration 
Story skill: Structuring the media and research into a place-based story.

Project 3C Due

Add research, media, structure and finish good draft of story

Week 15: Publish, Showcase & Look Forward — STAGE 4

Question: How can a digital story change the way someone sees a place?

Learn

Do

  • Complete final revisions.
  • Check mobile/desktop presentation.
  • Add accessibility information, captions, credits, citations, and permissions.
  • Publish the finished ArcGIS StoryMap.
  • Present the project in the final showcase.
  • Explain how photography, sound/video, text, and mapping contribute different information.
  • Complete a final reflection connecting all three projects:
    • How did my media capture improve?
    • How did my understanding of story change?
    • Which production skill developed most?
    • What storytelling skill do I want to develop next?

Project 3D Final Due + Final Showcase

Final Projects due–complete, publish & public. and Class Showcase 

Got a question? Need Help?
Have a suggestion?

Send a message

SLACK