I’m giving a talk about drama in learning at this year’s Learning Technologies event on May the 4th. so of course I had to reference Star Wars! This piece features ideas from the talk – in which I look at classic story structure and the power of drama to stimulate transcendent thinking. The notion of transcendent thinking – which leverages procedural and semantic memories in the service of broader knowledge – comes from learning researcher and theorist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Episode 3, The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is a redemption plot. This is a genre of film that looks back over life events in flashback with a voice-over and, of course, ends with a redemption. This is similar to story structures often used in L&D –when something goes wrong,and a characterreflects on it in flashback. I bring out the tropes so we can credibly work in this genre.