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Storytelling With Purpose: Digital Projects to Ignite Student Curiosity 1st Edition
Michael Hernandez
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Interactive Storytelling 10th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling ICIDS 2017 Funchal Madeira Portugal November 14 17 2017 Proceedings 1st Edition Nuno Nunes
International Society for Technology in Education ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
“Michael Hernandez’s new book on digital storytelling is a must-have for educators. It’s a clear, practical guide for infusing storytelling in any subject. Hernandez outlines the essentials of digital storytelling with easy-to-follow steps and relevant examples. This book is perfect for teachers aiming to integrate more multimedia into their lessons and empower their students as creators. It’s an invaluable resource for enhancing classroom engagement and creativity.”
Monica Burns, Ed.D. author of EdTech Essentials and founder of ClassTechTips.com
“Michael Hernandez is a master storyteller and a master teacher, and this beautifully designed book is a perfect example of his craft. Through the range of practical ideas and the illustrative examples in Storytelling With Purpose, every teacher, storyteller, and creator who aspires to refine their approaches will benefit from engaging with Michael’s latest work. This is one of those rare books where you can benefit from reading it linearly from front to back or jump around to the areas that interest you the most (at first— you’ll be compelled to read it all no matter what!). This is a wonderful contribution to the body of literature that focuses on purposeful, student-centered education.”
Dr. Reshan Richards Lecturer, Columbia University School of Professional Studies Co-Founder, Explain Everything (acquired by Promethean, Inc.)
“Storytelling with Purpose is a much-needed resource for today’s educator. Through stories and examples from his experience as a teacher, Michael brings us on a journey to understand ways to support storytelling in the classroom and to empower the voices of youth by design. Readers are able to explore different types, forms, and purposes of digital stories and then are guided through a creation process positioning students (and teachers) as thoughtful observers of the world, creators of stories, and messengers of perspective, experience, and action. Inspiring and inventive, this book will be one I can return to again and again!”
Jennifer Williams
ISTE Author, Global Educator
Co-founder
Take Action Global and TeachSDGs
“The entire experience in Michael’s classes set me on a course through college and into my journalism career, where I still lean on all those lessons every day.”
Alicia Hastey
Producer, CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell
“Michael is an individual with a superb understanding of how to adapt to a student’s comprehension of material. He not only has the ‘know how’ but he is able to convey his message so that it’s suitable to the listener. He can teach anyone!”
Hunter Isbell Curriculum Director and Music Teacher
“We value his ability to integrate his classroom experience with his extensive knowledge of tech and its power to personalize learning for students of all ages. He is an exceptional storyteller and talented speaker.”
World rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system—without prior written permission from the publisher. Email permissions@iste.org for more information.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hernandez, Michael (Educator), author.
Title: Storytelling with purpose : digital projects to ignite student curiosity / Michael Hernandez.
Description: First edition. | Portland, Oregon : International Society for Technology in Education, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023028827 (print) | LCCN 2023028828 (ebook) | ISBN 9781564849960 (paperback) | ISBN 9781564849977 (epub) | ISBN 9781564849984 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Digital storytelling. | Project method in teaching.
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023028827
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023028828
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-56484-996-0
Ebook version available
ISBN EPUB: 978-1-56484-997-7
ISBN PDF: 978-1-56484-998-4
Printed in the United States of America
ISTE® is a registered trademark of the International Society for Technology in Education.
About ISTE
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is home to a passionate community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching and learning, accelerate innovation and solve tough problems in education.
ISTE inspires the creation of solutions and connections that improve opportunities for all learners by delivering: practical guidance, evidence-based professional learning, virtual networks, thought-provoking events and the ISTE Standards. ISTE is also the leading publisher of books focused on technology in education. For more information or to become an ISTE member, visit iste.org. Subscribe to ISTE’s YouTube channel and connect with ISTE on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and LinkedIn.
Related ISTE Titles
Moviemaking in the Classroom: Lifting Student Voices Through Digital Storytelling by Jessica Pack (2021)
Teach Boldly: Using Edtech for Social Good by Jennifer Williams (2019)
New Realms for Writing: Inspire Student Expression with Digital Age Formats by Michele Haiken (2019)
Bring History and Civics to Life: Lessons and Strategies to Cultivate Informed, Empathetic Citizens by Karalee Wong Nakatsuka and Laurel AguilarKirchhoff (2022)
To see all books available from ISTE, please visit iste.org/books.
About the Author
Always a slow reader and a perennial bad speller, Michael struggled to appreciate books and writing growing up. It was an unpleasant chore to read and write, which created a disconnect between incredible ideas and inspiring stories, and Michael’s ability to access or write them himself. As he collected graphic novels, he began to understand the connection between art, design, and story. Then, on his 11th birthday, he received a storytelling tool that he had been begging for for years, and that would ultimately change his life: a 35mm camera. But in school, the only stories that mattered, that were considered serious and worthy of attention and praise, were printed with text.
Then in college, Michael saw his first arthouse films and was struck with the realization that cinema could be much more than a populist distraction. It was, in the right hands, a form of literature on par with the greatest novels. His love of cinema took him to film school, where he also began teaching as a graduate student. It turned out that this, too, was a form of storytelling, one that had the potential to evoke emotion, spark conversations, and empower individuals to become their best selves.
The path to teaching revealed itself through storytelling, and Michael embraced his role encouraging young people to tell stories that matter.
Since taking the leap into education, Michael has become an award-winning teacher, international speaker, author, and curriculum designer who helps individuals and organizations discover and share authentic stories that matter. He has been featured by Forbes, Edutopia, PBS, NPR, and SXSW EDU. Some of his most memorable teaching experiences include moderating conversations with Ken Burns and Dolores Huerta, and teaching his daughter Maya, who was one of his high school journalism students.
As a trusted expert, he has worked with schools, tech startups, nonprofits, and corporations to develop their brand and engage their stakeholders. His clients include Apple, Adobe, Google, and National Geographic. Change The Narrative, his podcast and monthly newsletter, has a global audience of thousands.
Michael is an Apple Distinguished Educator, PBS Digital Innovator, and National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. Follow him on these social platforms:
Instagram: @Changing.The.Narrative
X/Twitter: @cinehead
LinkedIn: bit.ly/MichaelHernandezLinkedIn
Acknowledgments
Publisher Acknowledgments
ISTE gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following:
Everyone owes a debt to their teachers for helping us become the people we are today. Their passion, personality, and philosophy live on through us, and in turn, our own students. To my fourthgrade teacher, Mrs. Baird, for teaching me about ions and wrinkles in time. To my fifth- and sixthgrade teacher, Mr. Mattos, for the many creative projects, computer code, Kahlil Gibran, and Cosmos. To Mr. Ratcliffe for teaching me about science in one explosive class period. To my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Stephen Lee, for bonding over Northern Exposure and the Sex Pistols (on vinyl) and introducing me to mind-blowing cinema (Chris Marker! Luis Bunuel!). To Dr. Sue Scheibler, my graduate school mentor—and probably the smartest person I know— who subjected me to double features of Andrei “You Call This a Movie?” Tarkovsky, wrote original poetry for my thesis film, and served as a judge for my own students’ film festival for nearly 20 years.
Much love to my global Apple Distinguished Educators family who opened my mind to new possibilities in teaching and continually serve as a sounding board and inspiration for work and life: Kurt and Christine Klynen, Cathy Hunt, Keri-Lee Beasley, Mary Kemper, Eoin Hughes, Erika Moser, Antonio Manriquez, Nancy Kawaja, Michelle Cordy, Sharon Drummond, Maxx Judd, Matt Baier, Marco Torres, and those who appear in this book: Dan Ryder, Karrin Burns, Jodie Deinhammer, Leah Lacrosse, and Karen Bosch.
Thanks to my learning community around the world who make me smarter, wiser, and easier to get along with: Dr. Monica Burns, Dr. Jennifer Williams, Michelle Moore, Ben Walker, Dave Davis, Luis Perez, Greg Alchin, Ellen Austin, Brendan Constantine, and my writer’s group who got me through this book, one 7:00 a.m. meeting at a time: Ela Ben-Ur, Julia Kramer, Susie Wise, Jill Vialet, Juliette Melton, and Erin Huizenga.
And cheers to those who inspire my soul: Jonathan Gold, Wong Kar-Wai, James Baldwin, McCoy Tyner, Gustav Mahler, and Annie Dillard.
Dedication
For my parents, Juan and Claudia, lifelong educators who were my first teachers, and from whom I continue to learn every day. For my daughter, Maya, who inspires me with her creativity and passion, and who taught me how to be a better teacher.
PROLOGUE
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince.
For 25 years, I’ve taught high school journalism, cinematic arts, and photography. While these courses have been frequently relegated to the margins as “elective” by standardized test companies and academic traditionalists, we are realizing now that storytelling is in fact central to learning and plays a crucial role in finding solutions to some of our most pressing challenges in education and society.
The COVID-19 pandemic shone a light on the flaws of traditional learning methods, both in terms of their effectiveness and the willingness of both students and teachers to play the game of direct instruction/memorization/regurgitation, which often only serves privileged students (CEW Georgetown University, 2019). We struggled to give ourselves and our students a good reason why school (in-person or remote) was important. Suddenly, everyone had new clarity on what mattered most to them, their lives, and the good of the planet, and school often wasn’t part of that.
Cyberbullying, trolling, misinformation, and disinformation campaigns spun by bad actors on digital and traditional media platforms have fanned the flames of racism and hate and led to insurrections and violence around the world. The promise that social media and digital storytelling once held as
a democratizing force for sharing information and ideas has been tarnished, and many parents and educators have reacted by banning technology, hoping that if we don’t see social media, it doesn’t exist and neither will its potential downsides. But this stance to embrace digital illiteracy under the guise of protecting our kids has only backfired. It makes teachers less legitimate in the eyes of our students, leaving them vulnerable to those who are more digitally savvy and antagonistic, and creates a generation of citizens who are unprepared to navigate the political, cultural, and professional world that has been digital-first for decades.
Advances in artificial intelligence now allow anyone to prompt an app to quickly write essays, college application letters, curriculum, computer code, or anything else you request. Suddenly, educators are forced to question what we’re teaching and why, and if we haven’t already, ask the most fundamental question of all: What do we mean by “learning”? Is it just teaching kids the mechanics of how to communicate ideas (grammar, spelling, sentence structure—all now rendered pointless by AI) or is it about focusing on the purpose of learning? And how can our students make good, ethical decisions when no one is looking?
This book is an attempt to answer these existential challenges by reframing the learning process as one based on empowerment, centering student curiosity, purpose, and joy as the engines that drive all learning experiences. Using nonfiction storytelling as a framework for learning embraces the idea that learning should be an authentic experience, both in the academic sense of leveraging integrity to conduct research and develop ideas, as well as with the ultimate motivating goal of creating an original product that will have an impact on an audience beyond the classroom. Digital storytelling can be the framework upon which we hang our curriculum (skills, knowledge, information) and an opportunity to help students develop a more positive relationship to learning within the context of a global society.
My experience as a secondary teacher and as a dad has revealed that many students and teachers perceive curiosity and wonder as a weakness—a source of anxiety for many students who may fear getting a bad grade or looking unintelligent because of their lack of understanding or knowledge. We have also become a society where many take offense when our assumptions or the status quo are challenged, making it difficult to embrace inquiry in the classroom and beyond. This book offers ways to flip that model around and honors and embraces student curiosity as the driving force behind learning. Instead of being punished for what we don’t know (through grades, personal status, scholarships, honor roll, etc.), we elevate and praise the most interesting, provocative questions and the extent to which we answer them.
My goal for this book is to help all stakeholders adopt a new set of mindsets, including learning to:
Ê understand how students can use nonfiction storytelling as a way of thinking and processing information
Ê use storytelling as a vehicle for inquiry and assessment, not as entertainment or distraction
Ê encourage student-centered learning where teachers are leaders/facilitators
Ê use multimedia as an effective, relevant way to communicate ideas beyond text alone
Ê integrate nonfiction storytelling projects in classrooms of all grade levels and subject areas
Ê honor and support student independence, ownership, and personal responsibility within the context of a global society
Ê reimagine what we mean by “learning” and “success” as human-centered experiences rather than data-driven processes
Not a “Nice-to-Have”:
Storytelling as an Essential Skill for Learning
While it’s true that school can’t be a free-for-all where students do whatever they want by choosing only what “feels good” to study and leaving behind essential skills and experiences, it’s also true that traditional curriculum and teaching methods, under added pressure of high stakes testing and “accountability,” have left our students unprepared to be successful citizens in a contemporary world (Marciano, 2001).
Storytelling projects are often treated as a reward for students once their “real work” has been completed. Somehow we’ve developed a mindset that project-based learning experiences like nonfiction storytelling are a lower form of learning than traditional assignments, perhaps because they can be fun and rewarding, rather than tedious or painful. But rigor and hard work can be synonymous with passion and purpose—we can and should enjoy working hard to achieve goals that are meaningful and for causes we care about. This is really the most important lesson we need to teach our students.
For nearly a quarter century, I’ve witnessed the power of storytelling projects to elevate learning and invigorate students’ sense of curiosity and provide meaning and purpose for school. But don’t take my word for it. There is a ton of research that supports my anecdotal experience and verifies storytelling and its associated skills and learning experiences as effective ways to elevate learning across disciplines and grade levels.
Some of the research finds:
Ê Storytelling is an effective way to improve literacy (Miller & Pennycuff, 2008).
Ê Curiosity improves reading and math achievement (Shah et al., 2018).
Ê Curiosity is a basic element of cognition and even to our biology (Kidd & Hayden, 2015).
Ê Image-based content, alongside text-based content, may serve as an effective pedagogical supplement to students with or without cognitive disabilities (Smith et al., 2021).
Ê Creative activities result in job mastery and control and positive performance-related outcomes (Eschleman et al., 2014).
Ê Memorization of facts (like for quizzes and tests) does not help higher-level thinking, but that retrieval experiences—like those required for storytelling projects—do (Agarwal, 2019).
How to Use This Book
This book provides practical examples and classroom-tested advice to get teachers started with digital storytelling projects, no matter your resources or technical expertise. I recognize that trying something new can be scary or difficult unless you have the support of colleagues, administration, and parents. To help you on your journey, I’ve also included research, examples from my classroom, and testimony from teachers across the country that show how the ideas in this book can help solve real, day-to-day challenges that educators face. It’s my hope that this book can help make the case to stakeholders in your community for moving to a more learner-centered pedagogy based on authenticity and inquiry, and an understanding that a rigorous education should also be one filled with purpose and joy.
The book is divided into three parts, the What, Why, and How of digital storytelling:
Ê Part I defines what digital storytelling is and how its unique capabilities can elevate learning for students of all abilities. I break down the steps of the storytelling process, share secrets about working collaboratively, and tell how to come up with good story ideas.
Ê Part II is dedicated to understanding why we should use digital story projects, and how they fit naturally into our existing curriculum, including how to use them for inquiry and design thinking, and as a way to provide authentic, uncheatable assessments.
Ê Part III is a compilation of my favorite storytelling projects, organized by learning needs, like anthologies, observation and inquiry, creativity, and writing. I’ve included simple, easy projects you can use right away, as well as advice for more complex projects when you and your students are ready.
Ê The appendices are a curated set of resources to help you find the best tools to use for story projects, ethical guidance about copyright and privacy, and a bibliography of my favorite books, organizations, and resources.
If you can’t wait to start creating digital stories, jump ahead to chapter 16 for Quick Win projects you can use with your students right away, then circle back to earlier chapters for advice on assessment, developing story ideas, and the logistics of how to integrate these projects into your curriculum.
The ideas and mindsets I describe are intended to help students in your school become curious, confident, engaged citizens who have a healthy relationship to learning throughout their lives. But this book is just the beginning.
Digital Resources: Student Examples and Updated Tools
Digital tools and resources evolve rapidly, so I’ve created a website that collects my latest, updated recommendations for tools, articles, and other resources for your classroom. You can also see examples of the student projects discussed in this book.
Scan the QR code to access the site.
Join a global community of educators who share a common goal of creating authentic learning experiences by sharing your ideas, student projects, and insights by using the hashtag #StorytellingWithPurpose. Have questions or need advice on how to use these ideas in your learning space? Visit storytelling-with-purpose.com or drop me an email: michael@storytelling-with-purpose.com
PART I
WHAT ARE DIGITAL STORIES?
Digital stories are much more than videos–they include a broad range of interactive multimedia formats, like infographics, audio recordings, photographs, and digital books that are flexible enough to be used in every subject area and grade level. In this first part of the book, I talk about what digital storytelling can be, how it amplifies and expands on what teachers already do best, and share the secrets of how to create effective stories.
CHAPTER 1
ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL STORIES
What are digital stories, and why would teachers want to use them in the classroom?
This chapter shows how the unique features of digital storytelling can open possibilities for how students relate to ideas and information and discusses how the dynamic nature of digital stories changes the relationship between author and audience to create a more equitable, personalized learning experience for people of all abilities and backgrounds.
Interactivity
Textbooks, novels, and manuals are designed as a one-way transmission of information, mirroring a traditional mindset about education: students as vessels to be filled with information from books and lectures. But direct instruction can lead to lower engagement by neglecting students’ sense of curiosity and discouraging ownership of learning. The interactivity made possible with digital stories doesn’t necessarily change the information or content, but rather changes how authors and audiences relate to that information.
Digital stories transform narratives into a participatory experience by:
Ê providing the ability to review multimedia at different speeds to enhance understanding
Ê zooming in on images for better analysis
Ê interacting with the audience via comment threads
Ê collaborative authorship and global distribution stories (via cloud storage, or links posted on social media, websites, and audience re-sharing)
Hyperlinks
Where analog stories are closed and often linear, digital stories are open and non-linear. Links placed in digital books, blogs, websites, and social media stories allow audiences to navigate between sections within a single story or to resources related to but outside of a story. This lets audiences create their own learning adventure, which makes for a more robust and personalized experience. And the ability to rewind, replay, or skip through a story honors the audience’s unique learning needs, time constraints, and reading conditions.
Hyperlinks allow many advantages for student authors, including:
Ê connecting stories to primary source documentation (like a live footnote)
Ê making it easier for audiences to extend learning through further exploration
Ê keeping stories evergreen and up-to-date by linking to sites with the latest scientific, artistic, journalistic, and cultural information
This is also a great opportunity to discuss hyperlink literacy and the purpose of curation. Like the recommended resources at the end of this book, hyperlinks offer a way for students to thoughtfully add knowledge and provide context for their stories. This leads to important discussions about the quality and reliability of sources they use and positions student authors as trusted experts who can recommend sources and provide the audience opportunities for future study of a topic.
Audience as Coauthor of Stories
Just as we reread passages of an article that we need to understand better or jump around a magazine or newspaper in a non-linear way, digital stories enable the audience to leap to different sections of a website or digital book, skip to the most recent podcast episode, or review the most important sections of a YouTube video. Commenting features of publicly posted work can create a dialogue between audience and author that creates an extended meta-story with the potential to add new perspectives and clarity not possible with a single author’s perspective. (See how this affected one of my students in chapter 9.)
Multimedia
Multimedia—content other than text, such as images, video, or audio—helps student authors and their audiences understand ideas and information in ways that text can’t, such as providing evidence, creating context, revealing relationships, and designing visual metaphors.
Show, don’t tell: photos and video assist scientists, mathematicians, and journalists by documenting the world with concrete visual evidence and material for analysis.
Clarity and context: photographs, video, and illustrations describe complex concepts, while maps and data visualizations reveal patterns and spatial relationships.
Experiential learning: creating multimedia artifacts often requires students to engage with other people, places, and events beyond the classroom, creating opportunities to build interpersonal skills and develop a personal relationship to the curriculum.
Find out more about how to use the unique traits of multimedia in chapter 2.
Shareability
When stories are shared with an audience other than the teacher, it helps students see a purpose for their work, because they know it won’t just end up in the trash. In fact, their story can even help or inspire others. This is instrumental in unlocking student engagement.
It’s also an opportunity to talk about our responsibility as storytellers. Some of the most profound learning happens when my students grapple with the relationship between themselves and their audience, including:
Ê choices about how to craft the most effective story
Ê concern for how their work might impact others
Ê discovering personal and cultural biases (which stories get told or left untold)
Low Cost
Using free or low-cost digital storytelling tools helps schools save money and have less impact on the environment. Buying, printing, storing, and shipping traditional materials isn’t an option for many schools, and distribution of stories via social media, websites, email, or cloud storage can help reach global audiences in minutes. Updates to stories that include the latest data or other information can be done instantly, without having to reprint and redistribute, as with traditional publishing.
Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion
A ramp at a sidewalk helps parents with strollers, the elderly, and people with injuries get over the curb—not just people in a wheelchair. In the same way, our assignments, in the form of digital storytelling, help all learners access our curriculum. The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) embodies this idea by recognizing that accessibility features benefit all learners, not just those with diagnosed disabilities.
Consider how student-created digital stories can help us assess all students in more equitable ways: instead of being tripped up by the assessment tool or process, students have the flexibility to demonstrate their knowledge and application of that knowledge in ways that suit them best. Written assignments, for example, may hinder students who are language learners or those with learning disabilities, and timed tests may get in the way of any student who processes and works at different speeds.
The unique features of digital stories, including speech to text, text to speech, the ability to adjust font size and line spacing, and closed-captioning for videos, increase fluency for all learners (Crowley & Jordan, 2019) and make our classrooms more inclusive. The ability to literally show what you know through photography, video, audio, and performance elevates our ability to accurately check student understanding through multiple metrics and pathways.
Just to be clear, this isn’t about making exceptions or easier assignments (creating an effective documentary is much harder and more complex than writing a report!). This is about students owning their learning and our respect for them as responsible individuals within our learning communities.
Multimodal Literacy
Multimodal literacy is the concept that students develop the ability to understand and create “texts” that use a variety of media—such as video, photography, sound, gestures, etc. Posters, for example, use the modes of text, image, and color to convey ideas. Social media memes are a modern take on posters, because they also include cultural references and humor that often rely on irony and hyperbole. Video is inherently multimodal,
intertwining photography, sound, movement, editing, performance, and dialogue.
Developing multimodal literacy is vital for developing media-literate students who can communicate in the world outside of school. (Kalantzis, 2016). It’s also a great opportunity for our students to check their assumptions about the best ways to learn and communicate knowledge.
1.1 Seeing Sound: Multimedia allows students of all abilities to access our curriculum and be included. In one case, my deaf and hard of hearing students used audio waveforms (visualized sound levels) to guide their editing of video projects. Their edits turned out to be more precise than their hearing classmates, which boosted their confidence and allowed them to participate fully in the class.
FIGURE
CHAPTER 2
BEYOND WORDS: THE POWER OF MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING
When we say, “Oh, I see!” what we really mean is that we understand. But the metaphor of sight as knowledge is more than just a turn of phrase—seeing is believing, and digital stories offer opportunities to use our senses to make sense of the world and to learn in three dimensions.
FIGURE 2.1 The creative process. Even a simple line can convey complicated processes and help an audience understand without the need for words. Source: The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, thedesignsquiggle.com
Consider the ironic humor of a political cartoon, the way a time-lapse video spans seasons or the lifetime of a plant, and how audio reveals the song of humans and the natural world. Illustrations aren’t just for assembling IKEA furniture—they’re critical for assembling knowledge, especially concepts too complex for words. (We’d literally be lost without maps and charts, for example.) So why have we privileged the written word when multimedia has so much to offer?
While writing is at the heart of every digital story (think scripts, interview questions, captions), I like to think of multimedia as a different kind of writing, with its own grammar, that works alongside words to create spatial relationships and provide unique information and detail that words simply can’t.
In this chapter, I share the secrets of using multimedia (photography, audio, video, data visualizations, and illustrations) to provide clarity, improve accessibility, and tell stories that resonate with an audience’s heart and mind.
Photography: A Thousand Words
Photography is the most familiar and accessible type of visual storytelling. It’s also a powerful way to document reality and provide visual evidence, making it a great place to start when creating multimedia stories.
Photography as Nonfiction Storytelling
Historians, journalists, and scientists rely on the collection of information to understand events, draw conclusions, and make predictions about the future.
What Photography Brings to Storytelling
Visual evidence. Documents an event, action, or phenomenon.
Context. Shows the relationship between objects or people within an environment.
Freezing action. Allows detailed analysis of an object or action that’s not possible when experiencing it live or while in motion.
FIGURE 2.2 Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion, Plate 626, 1887. Using photography to freeze movement of animals and people, Muybridge was able to analyze physical phenomena, like the galloping horse in this image, which revealed for the first time that the animals leave the ground while running.
Photography is a great way to document phenomena and provide proof—or visual evidence—to support research and persuasive stories alike.
Photography for Analysis
In the 1800s, Eadweard Muybridge created the first stop-motion images, which proved the power of photography to aid scientific research by analyzing movement. His images were the first evidence that horses left the ground briefly while running, which had previously been impossible to observe with the naked eye. Consider using photographs in the same way to freeze movement to analyze details students might not be physically able to perceive on their own, or use them to create time for closer inspection and reflection.
Macro and telephoto lenses, like microscopes and telescopes, can help us observe details of objects up close or far away, and capturing people’s faces can also provide an emotional, human dimension to a story, an important qualitative type of data collection.
Audio: Storytelling with Emotion
Audio is an underestimated and immersive storytelling medium that is also one of the least complicated to create. Without being bogged down with visual skills like composition and lighting that are required for video and photography, these types of stories allow students to focus on elements like writing, speaking, and conducting interviews.
Sonic stories tend to be the best at capturing emotion because they’re an intimate and personal medium. Consider someone’s accent or the fatigue in their voice, or the specific sounds of a frozen lake beginning to melt. Unlike photography and video, audio stories can also minimize audience
What Audio Brings to Storytelling
Details. Animal calls in nature, the power of thunder, the strength of a rushing river, congestion of traffic on a street, accents of regional and foreign languages, the sounds of machines when they work right or when they are malfunctioning all can establish atmosphere and a sense of place, which help us feel what it’s like to be in a particular place. Accents can tell us where someone is from.
Emotion and tone. Vocal tone may reveal someone’s emotional state or if they’re being hyperbolic, sarcastic, or ironic.
Music. Whether captured intrinsically as part of a recording, like a band or radio playing in the background during an interview, or added on top of a story later, like a film score, music can evoke emotion, create motifs, and provide opportunities for allusion. It’s also a great way to document and examine culture and history.
Accessibility. The ability to record and playback ideas without the need for text puts the focus back on content and thinking and removes technical and physical obstacles of reading and writing. For younger students whose ideas may surpass their writing ability, those with learning disabilities, and students with mobility issues that make writing or typing difficult, consider recording student voices as an alternative to written assignments.
bias: because we can’t see the people being interviewed, audiences are less liable to judge them based on race, age, or how they’re dressed.
Oral Histories
Audio histories have long been used by sociologists and anthropologists to document people and culture. StoryCorps is a nonprofit that produces audio histories by letting people record a personal story in a mobile recording studio. These stories are later archived at the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center. They also provide resources and a mobile app to help you record and upload your own audio histories. See ideas for oral history projects in chapter 12.
Use audio stories to collect data and information, such as:
Ê eyewitness accounts of historical events
Ê sounds of the natural world like animal calls and weather
Ê music, languages, and regional accents that are quickly disappearing in our globalized world (cultural phenomena)
Ê conversations when studying foreign languages
Audio Stories for Research
Sound is a powerful tool for both qualitative and quantitative research. Interviewing experts and eyewitnesses helps students and their audiences make personal connections to topics and build empathy for others because we hear evidence and reactions directly from a real stakeholder. Documenting the sounds of a phenomenon or event provides context, data, and evidence. Consider documenting the sounds of your community and use audio stories for research, analysis, and preservation.
Quantitative research
Audio recordings can collect data in two ways: inside the content of the recording, and data from the recording itself.
Data inside the content of the recording comes from decoding statements from people who might
be interviewed in a story, such as experts and stakeholders who share statistics and other countable info. This might include the number of times someone has won or lost a sports game, how many siblings they have, how many books they’ve read, or what countries they’ve immigrated from. Experts can provide data related to story topics, such as population changes in your town, the cost of repairing cities after large storms, or distances in migration patterns.
Data derived from the recording itself can provide unique insights about the topic, too. For example, counting the frequency that something happens over a period of time, like the number of times a woodpecker pecks wood (slow down the recording to count!), the number of cars passing in a specific location on a road, or the frequency of certain words used in a conversation. Duration can also be a data point, such as the time it takes for vehicles to pass or the sustain of a musical note.
Video: Sculpting in Time
Video combines the visual evidence of photography with the emotional detail of audio and adds a new dimension that makes the medium unique: movement. Whereas photography freezes action, video shines when it’s used to show movement and change. The use of slow motion, frame-byframe playback, and time-lapse videography can help students analyze actions more closely to reveal details not possible with the naked eye or photography alone. It’s also the medium that best helps audiences feel what it’s like to be in a specific place and time.
Use Video Stories To:
Ê Document an event, action, or phenomenon, like reactions in a science experiment.
Ê Document and analyze technique, such as solving equations, determining narrative structure of paragraphs, poetry, or essays, or studying the skills of a sport.
Ê Record a time-lapse of a creation process that takes a long time, such as painting a mural, building a robot, or the growth of a plant.
Data Visualization: Painting by Numbers
It’s difficult to make sense of raw numbers by staring at a spreadsheet or reading descriptions in paragraphs of text. The best way to make sense of
What Video Brings to Storytelling
Movement as visual evidence. Think of the ways video can show how an animal moves or feeds, the way a soccer player “bends” a ball to make a goal, or the flight path of a rocket— the movement made possible with video helps us understand the concepts of these kinds of phenomena more accurately.
Movement as context. Video allows the viewer to see changes over time and how people interact with one another. Moving the camera during recording can reveal spatial relationships.
Time remapping. Slowing down or speeding up video can help us get a more accurate understanding of phenomena, sometimes revealing new information that would be impossible to discern using any other medium. This is helpful in science and also in performance-based curriculum like art or athletics, when analyzing body movement.
Image and sound in sync. Some phenomena can only be truly understood with the combination of image and sound, such as a recording of a thunderstorm or testimony of a documentary interview.
numerical data is often to picture it. That’s where data visualizations come in. Pictorial representations of numbers, like charts and graphs, literally help us connect the dots to make sense of data and clearly explain to an audience what they mean.
What Data Visualization Brings to Storytelling
Understand relationships. Bar graphs, scattergrams, and vector maps show how data compare to one another and help reveal similarities and differences.
Reveal patterns. Pictorial representation of data helps us see trends and changes over time, like global temperatures in the past 200 years, or the number of women in the workplace since the 1950s.
FIGURE 2.3 Pictorial representation provides more clarity and understanding than raw numbers.
FIGURE 2.4 Infographics combine images, text, and data to communicate ideas clearly to an audience. Images created by Saipragnya Akula (top) and Summer Armstrong (bottom).
Data Visualizations for the Rest of Us
Charts and graphs aren’t just for math and science students. There are many kinds of data whose story we can visually represent—and therefore understand better—in every subject area. These might include:
Ê using timelines to sequentially view historical moments, evolutionary or geological events, or show a sequence of steps in a process
Ê creating tables to make comparisons and organize information like data about different planets or how to conjugate verbs of foreign languages
Ê designing graphs that compare demographic information about important figures related to your curricular area, like the age, gender, or race of often-referenced scientists, authors, or musicians, and compare that to your community or state population
Ê taking the temperature of your community by polling students’ and community members’ reactions to content in your curriculum, like pieces of literature, historical events, class projects, or future areas of study
Find out more about tools to create data visualizations in appendix A.
Illustrations: Pictorial Representations
If you’ve ever tried to explain to someone how to carve a turkey over the phone or made someone upset when your ironic text didn’t land the way you intended, you quickly realized the limits of words.
FIGURE 2.5 Images like this heat map of shots taken on goal for lacrosse can bridge math, sports, and student interests. Courtesy Jesse McNulty.
FIGURE 2.6 Symbolic: Convey important information quickly without the need for words.
Illustrations are a great way to help students and audiences make sense of a topic by showing relationships, organizing content, and conveying nonverbal information, especially when a technique or process is too complex for words, or when the audience might have difficulty reading or understanding text (Bobek & Tversky, 2016). They can include everything from furniture assembly instructions to book covers to memes.
What Illustrations Bring to Storytelling
Clarity and simplicity. Sometimes it’s best to “just show me!” Universal symbols for things like stop signs, electrical hazards, or nuclear radiation are needed when safety is too important to be left to interpretation.
Accessibility. Words may prevent younger learners, language learners, or those with learning disabilities from understanding concepts.
Emotional and interpretive connection. Book, album, and podcast cover art can get attention and create an emotional relationship toward a work. Students can create illustrations to show their interpretation of a story and help the audience see a story in new ways.
Nonverbal cues like irony or humor. Editorial cartoons and memes use satire to activate high-level thinking skills in the author and audience. These types of projects add another level of interpretation to subject matter that can help us see stories through the lens of pop culture, and the relation of our curriculum to current events.
Diagrams
Everyone who’s assembled furniture from IKEA knows how helpful images can be when understanding a complex process, and when words alone don’t make sense. Diagrams can also help us show relationships and provide a way to organize information, like Venn diagrams and company organizational charts.
FIGURE 2.7 Diagrams like these help provide clarity by showing relationships and context.
FIGURE 2.8 Use maps to sort information spatially and show relationships between information.
In the same way we rely on sentence diagrams or the periodic table to organize and bring visual clarity to our curriculum, use diagrams in student stories to help them explain relationships and context.
Maps and Charts
Maps are for much more than seeing countries, topography, or roads. According to Carissa Carter
of Stanford d.school in her book The Secret Language of Maps, a map can be defined as “information that is sorted spatially and depicted visually” (p. 15). Create maps for projects like family trees, timelines, treasure maps, and star charts.
Editorial Illustrations
If you’ve stopped in your tracks to pick up a book in a store, paused your scrolling through social media to read an online article, listened to a podcast for the first time, or bought new music, it was probably because of an eye-catching illustration. Editorial illustrations are artwork created to visualize and reflect the concepts of another medium, like a book, music album, or magazine article, and are frequently used as part of marketing strategies.
Editorial illustrations are one of my favorite storytelling projects because they require deep, critical thinking where students translate abstract concepts into visual representations. In this process, they draw on their knowledge of design and color theory, metaphor, and symbolism, and make cultural and historical references. Language arts teachers may already have a book cover assignment in their curriculum, and editorial illustrations are also a great way to help students conceptualize abstract ideas in science, math, and social studies.
FIGURE 2.9 Use illustrations to create cover art for books, albums, or podcasts. This is the cover art for a student podcast about the experiences of BIPOC students at my school (top) and the editorial illustration created by my student Natalee Park for the same podcast (bottom). See projects for illustration in chapter 13.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
The Baroness broke the seal. There was such a look of scare upon her features, that some people might have thought she was glad to have anything to do that should hide it from her companions. The letter was from Anthony Pennell, whose name was familiar to her, as to all the world.
As she finished its perusal, her manner entirely altered. The broad smile broke out on her countenance—her eyes sparkled—one would have thought she could never be in anything but a beaming good temper.
“’Olloa! ’Arriet!” she exclaimed, “’ere’s news for you! ’Oo do you think this letter’s from?”
“How can I guess?” replied the girl, though her thoughts had flown at once to Ralph Pullen.
“From Mr Anthony Pennell, the great author, you know, and own cousin to that rapscallion, Captain Pullen! Now we shall ’ear all about the ’andsome Captain! Mr. Pennell says ’e wants to come ’ere and see my china, but I know better! ’E’s bringing you a message from ’is cousin, mark my words! I can see it written up be’ind you!”
Harriet’s delicate face flushed with pleasure at the news.
“But why shouldn’t Captain Pullen have come himself?” she asked, anxiously.
“I can’t tell you that! Perhaps ’e is coming, be’ind the other, and this is only a feeler! There’s wheels within wheels in these big families, sometimes, you know, and the Pullens are connected with a lot of big-wigs! But we’ll ’ave some news, anyway! You just sit down, my dear, and write Mr. Pennell a pretty note in my name—you write a prettier ’and than I do—and say we shall be very pleased to see ’im to-morrow afternoon, if convenient, and I ’ope ’e will stay to dinner afterwards and be introduced to the Baron—will you?”
“O! yes, of course, Madame, if you wish it!” replied the girl, smiles dimpling her face at the thought of her triumph over Elinor Leyton.
“Now, Miss Wynward, we must ’ave a first-rate dinner to-morrow for Mr. Pennell, and you and Bobby ’ad better dine at one o’clock, or
you’ll spoil the table. Let me see! We’ll ’ave——”
But turning to enforce her orders, the Baroness discovered that Miss Wynward had quitted the room.
“Why! where ’as the woman gone? Did you see ’er leave the room, ’Arriet?”
“I did not! I was too much occupied listening to you,” replied the girl from the table, where she was inditing the answer to Anthony Pennell’s note.
“’Ere, Miss Wynward! Miss Wynward!” screamed the Baroness from the open door, but no reply came to her call.
“I must go and see after ’er!” she said, as she stumped from the room, as intent upon procuring a good dinner for one young man, as she had been in insulting the other, and turning him from her doors.
Meanwhile Captain Hill, hot and angry, was striding away in the direction of his own home, when he heard a soft voice calling his name in the rear. He turned to encounter the spare, humiliated form of Miss Wynward.
“Captain Hill,” she ejaculated, “I beg your pardon, but may I speak to you for a moment?”
Recognising her as having been in the room, when the Baroness had so grossly insulted him, he waited rather coldly for her to come up with him.
“Don’t think me impertinent or interfering,” faltered Miss Wynward, “but I was so shocked—so distressed—I could not let you go without saying how grieved and sorry I am!”
“I do not quite understand you,” replied Captain Hill.
“O! yes, surely, did you not see me in the room just now! I felt as if I should die of shame! But if you knew what it is to be dependent—to be unable to speak or to expostulate—you would guess perhaps ——”
“Yes! Yes! I think I can understand. But pray don’t distress yourself about it! It was my own fault! I should have addressed her first
through my solicitor. But I thought she was a gentlewoman!”
“It is her temper that gets the better of her,” said Miss Wynward in an apologetic tone, “she is not always so bad as she was this morning!”
“That is fortunate for the world at large,” replied Captain Hill, gravely. “I could have forgiven her vulgarity, but not her heartlessness. I can only think that she is a most terrible woman.”
“That is what everybody says,” answered his companion, “but she will admit of no remonstrance. She will have her own way, and the Baron is as powerless to refrain her, as you, or I. But that she should so insult a gentleman like yourself, even descending to oaths and personalities—O! I cannot tell you how much I felt it—how ashamed I was, and how anxious that you should not confound me with anything the Baroness said, or did!”
“Indeed,” said Captain Hill, holding out his hand, “you need have no fear on that score. I hope I know a gentlewoman when I see her! But tell me, since your eyes are open to all this, how is it that a lady like yourself can stay under the roof of so terrible a person? There are plenty of other situations to be had! Why do you not leave her, and go elsewhere?”
He was struck by the look of mingled anxiety and fear with which she regarded him.
“O! Captain Hill, there are reasons that are difficult to explain—that I could not tell to anyone on so short an acquaintance. But the Baroness possesses great power—she could ruin me, I believe she could kill if she chose!”
“She threatens you then!”
“Yes!” came from Miss Wynward’s lips, but in almost a whisper.
“Well! this is hardly the time and place to discuss such a question,” said Captain Hill, “but I should much like to see more of you, Miss Wynward! If you have any time at your disposal, will you come over and see my old mother? She is quite confined to her room, but I know it would please her to have a quiet talk with you!”
A light glistened in Miss Wynward’s washed-out eyes, and a smile stole over her countenance.
“Do you really mean it, Captain Hill?”
“I never say anything that I do not mean,” he answered, “I am sure both my parents would be glad to give you their advice, and my dear father, who is a clergyman, though past an active ministry, may be able to be of use to you in a more practical way. At anyrate, you will come and see us. That is a bargain!” and he held out his hand to her again in farewell.
“O! I will—I will, indeed,” exclaimed Miss Wynward, gratefully, “and thank you so very much for the permission. You have put a little hope into my life!”
She seized the hand he proffered her, and kissed it, as an inferior might have done, and then hurried back to the Red House, before he had had time to remonstrate with her on the proceeding.
C H A P T E R X I I I
When Anthony Pennell received the Baroness’s invitation, penned in the delicate foreign handwriting of Harriet Brandt, he accepted it at once. Being out of the season, he had no engagement for that evening, but he would have broken twenty engagements, sooner than miss the chance, so unexpectedly offered him, of meeting in an intimate family circle, the girl who appeared to have led his cousin Ralph’s fancy astray. He pictured her to himself as a whitey-brown young woman with thick lips and rolling eyes, and how Ralph, who was so daintily particular where the beau sexe was concerned, could have been attracted by such a specimen, puzzled Anthony altogether. The knowledge that she had money struck him unpleasantly, for he could think of no other motive for Captain Pullen having philandered with her, as he evidently had done. At anyrate, the idea that there was the least chance of allying herself with their family, must be put out of her head, at once and for ever.
Mr. Pennell amused himself with thinking of the scare he should create at the dinner table, by “springing” the news of Ralph’s intended marriage upon them, all at once. Would the young lady have hysterics, he wondered, or faint away, or burst into a passion of tears? He laughed inwardly at the probability! He felt very cruel over it! He had no pity for the poor quadroon, as Doctor Phillips had called her. It was better that she should suffer, than that Elinor Leyton should have to break off her engagement. And, by Margaret Pullen’s account, Miss Brandt had been both defiant and insulting to Miss Leyton. She must be a brazen, unfeeling sort of girl—it was meet that she paid the penalty of her foolhardiness.
It was in such a mood that Anthony Pennell arrived at the Red House at five o’clock in the afternoon, that he might have the opportunity to inspect the collection of china that had gained him an entrance there.
The Baroness had promised to be home in time to receive him, but he was punctual and she was not. Harriet Brandt was loitering about
the garden, which was still pleasant enough on fine days in the middle of September, when the news that Mr. Pennell was in the drawing-room was brought to her by Miss Wynward. Harriet had been very eager to meet Anthony Pennell—not because she was pining after his cousin, but because her feminine curiosity was strong to discover why Ralph had deserted her, and if he had been subjected to undue influence to force him to do so. But now that the time had come, she felt shy and nervous. Suppose he, Mr. Pennell, had seen Miss Leyton meanwhile, and heard all that had taken place between them, when she visited the Red House. And suppose he should take Miss Leyton’s part! Harriet’s mind was full of “supposes” as she turned to Miss Wynward and said,
“O! I can’t go and receive him, Miss Wynward! Mr. Pennell has come to see the Baroness, not me! Cannot you entertain him until she comes home? She will not be long now!”
“Her ladyship’s last words to me, Miss Brandt, were, that if she had not returned from the factory by the time Mr. Pennell arrived, you were to receive him and give him afternoon tea in her stead! I hope you will do as her ladyship desired!”
“Well! I suppose I must then,” replied Harriet, screwing up her mouth, with a gesture of dissatisfaction, “but do send in the tea, quickly, please!”
“It shall be up, Miss Brandt, as soon as I can get back to make it! Mr. Pennell seems a very pleasant gentleman! I wouldn’t mind if I were you!”
Miss Wynward hurried back to the house, as she spoke, and Harriet walked slowly over the lawn towards the drawing-room windows.
Anthony Pennell, who had been bending over some rare specimens of old Chelsea, looked up suddenly as she approached, and was struck dumb with admiration. She had improved wonderfully in looks since she had been in Europe, though the women who lived with her continually, were slow to perceive it. Her delicate complexion had acquired a colour like that of a blush rose, which
was heightened by contrast with her dark, glowing eyes, whilst her hair, by exposure to the rays of the sun, had caught some of its fire and showed ruddily, here and there, in streaks of auburn. Her figure, without having lost its lissom grace, was somewhat fuller, and her manner was altogether more intelligent, and less gauche than it had been. But the dark eyes were still looking for their prey, and the restless lips were incessantly twitching and moving one over the other. She was beautifully dressed that evening—she had not been in London for a month, without finding a way to spend her money— and Anthony Pennell, like most artistic natures, was very open to the influence of dress upon a woman. Harriet wore a frock of the palest lemon colour, cut quite plain, but perfect in every line and pleat and fold, and finished off at the throat with some rare lace, caught up here and there with tiny diamond pins.
“By Jove! what a beautiful girl!” was Mr. Pennell’s inward ejaculation as he saw her drawing nearer the spot where he stood. It was strange that his first judgment of Harriet Brandt should have been the same as that of his cousin, Ralph Pullen, but it only proves from what a different standpoint men and women judge of beauty. As Harriet walked over the grass, Anthony Pennell noted each line of her swaying figure—each tint of her refined face—with the pretty little hands hanging by her side, and the slumbrous depths of her magnificent eyes. He did not, for one moment, associate her with the idea which he had formed of the West Indian heiress who was bent on capturing his cousin Ralph. He concluded she was another young friend who might be partaking of the Baroness’s hospitality He bowed low as she entered through the open French window looking as a Georgian or Cashmerian houri might have looked, he thought, if clad in the robes of civilisation. Harriet bowed in return, and said timidly,
“I am so sorry that Madame Gobelli is not here to receive you, but she will not keep you waiting more than a few minutes, I am sure. She particularly said that she would not be later than five o’clock.”
“She has left a very charming substitute in her place,” replied Pennell, with another bow.
“I believe you have come to see the china,” continued Harriet, “I do not know much about it myself, but Miss Wynward will be here in a minute, and she knows the name of every piece, and where it came from!”
“That will be eminently satisfactory,” rejoined Anthony Pennell, “but I happen to be a connoisseur in such things myself. I have one or two charming bits of old Sèvres and Majolica in my chambers, which I think the Baroness would like to see if she will honour me with a visit to my little place. A lonely bachelor like myself must take up some hobby, you know, to fill his life, and mine happens to be china. Madame Gobelli appears to have some lovely Chelsea there. I would like to steal one or two of those groups on the cabinet. Will you hold the door open for me, whilst I run away with them?”
At this sally, Harriet laughed, and Mr. Pennell thought she looked even handsomer when she laughed than when she was pensive.
“Here is the tea!” she cried nervously, as Miss Wynward appeared with the tray. “O! Miss Wynward, surely Madame cannot be much longer now! Have you looked down the road to see if she is coming?”
“The carriage has just turned into the stable yard,” replied Miss Wynward, and in another minute, the doorway was filled with the ample proportions of the Baroness.
“’Olloa! Mr. Pennell, and so you’ve stolen a march upon me!” was her first greeting, “’ow are you?” extending her enormous hand, “’ave you been looking at the china? Wait till I’ve ’ad my tea; I’ll show you one or two bits that’ll make your mouth water! It’s my ’obby! I used to save my pocket money when I was a little gal to buy china. I remember my grandfather, the Dook of—but there, I ’aven’t known you long enough to let you into family secrets. Let’s ’ave our tea and talk afterwards! I ’ope ’Arriet ’as entertained you well!”
“This young lady—” commenced Anthony Pennell, interrogatively.
“To be sure, Miss ’Arriet Brandt! ’Asn’t she introduced ’erself to you? She’s like a daughter of the ’ouse to us! We look upon ’er as one of our own, Gustave and me! Miss Brandt from Jamaica! And
she knew your cousin, Captain Pullen, too, at Heyst, we all did, and we’re dying to ’ear what ’as become of ’im, for ’e’s never shown ’is face at the Red ’Ouse!”
The murder was out now, and Harriet waited tremblingly for the result! What did Mr. Pennell know? What would he say?
But Mr. Pennell said nothing—he was too much startled to speak. This, Harriet Brandt—this lovely girl, the quadroon of whom both Doctor Phillips and Mrs. Pullen had spoken so disparagingly?—of whom they had said that she was not fit to be the wife of any decent man? Oh! they must be fools and blind—or he was dreaming! The Baroness was not slow to see the look upon his face and to interpret it rightly.
“Are you surprised? You needn’t look so incredulous! I give you my word that this is ’Arriet Brandt—the same young lady that knew Mrs. Pullen and her brother-in-law and Miss Leyton over at Heyst. What sort of a character ’ave they been giving ’er be’ind ’er back?”
“Indeed, I assure you, Madame—” commenced Mr. Pennell, deprecatingly.
“You needn’t take the trouble to tell any tarradiddles about it! I can see it in your face! I didn’t think much of that cousin of yours from the beginning; ’e’s got a shifty sort of look, and as for that cold bit of goods, Miss Leyton, well, all I say is, God ’elp the man that marries ’er, for she’s enough to freeze the sun himself! But I liked Mrs. Pullen well enough, and I was sorry to ’ear that she ’ad lost ’er baby, for she was quite wrapt up in it! But I daresay she’ll soon ’ave another!”
Without feeling it incumbent on him to enter into an argument as to the probability of the Baroness’s last suggestion, Anthony Pennell was glad of the digression, as it gave him an opportunity of slurring over the dangerous subject of Ralph Pullen’s character.
“The loss of her child was a very great blow to my poor cousin,” he replied, “and she is still suffering from it, bitterly. Else, I have no doubt that you would have seen something of her—and the others,” he added in a lower tone. After a slight interval, he ventured to raise his eyes and see how the girl opposite to him had taken what was
said, but it did not appear to have made much impression on her— she was, on the contrary, gazing at him with that magnetic glance of hers as though she wanted to read into his very soul.
“Don’t go and say that I want to see ’em,” said the Baroness as, having devoured enough cake and bread and butter to feed an ordinary person for a day, she rose and led the way into another room. “I don’t want to see anybody at the Red ’Ouse that doesn’t want to come, and I ’aven’t expected the ladies. But as for Captain Pullen, ’oo made an engagement to follow our party to Brussels, and then never took the trouble to write a line to excuse ’imself for breaking ’is word, why, I say ’e’s a jerry sneak, and you may tell ’im so if you like! We didn’t want ’im. ’E proposed to come ’imself, and I engaged ’is room and everything, and then ’e skedaddled without a word, and I call it beastly be’aviour. You mustn’t mind my plain speaking, Mr. Pennell. I always say what I think! And I would like to break my stick over Captain Pullen’s back and that’s the truth.”
They were walking along the passage now, on their way to the Baron’s library—the Baroness in front with her hand leaning heavily on Pennell’s shoulder, and Harriet lingering a little behind. Anthony Pennell pondered awhile before he replied. Was this the time to announce Ralph’s intended marriage. How would the girl behind them take it?
He turned slightly and looked at her face as the thought passed through his mind. Somehow the eyes that met his reassured him. He began to think it must be a mistake—that she did not care for Ralph as much as Mrs. Pullen had supposed—that she was only offended perhaps (as her hostess evidently was) by the curt and uncivil manner in which he had treated them both. So he replied,
“I have not the slightest excuse to make for my cousin’s conduct, Madame Gobelli. It appears to me that he has treated you with very scant civility, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. But as you know, his little niece’s death was very sudden and unexpected, and the least he could do was to escort his sister-in-law and Miss Leyton back to England, and since then——”
“Well! and what since then?” demanded the Baroness, sharply.
“Lord Walthamstowe and he have come to an arrangement,” said Pennell, speaking very slowly, “that his marriage with Miss Elinor Leyton shall take place sooner than was at first intended. The Limerick Rangers are under orders for foreign service, and Captain Pullen naturally wishes to take his wife out with him, and though, of course, all this is no excuse for his omitting to write you a letter, the necessary preparations and the consequent excitement may have put his duty out of his head. Of course,” he continued, “you know that Ralph is engaged to marry Miss Leyton?”
“I ’eard something of it,” replied the Baroness reluctantly, “but one never knows what is true and what is not. Anyway, Captain Pullen didn’t give out the news ’imself! ’E seemed ’appy enough without Miss Leyton, didn’t ’e, ’Arriet?”
But turning round to emphasise her words, she found that Harriet had not followed them into the library. Whereupon she became confidential.
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Pennell,” she continued, “’e just be’aved like a scoundrel to our little ’Arriet there. ’E ran after the gal all day, and spent all ’is evenings in our private sitting-room, gazing at ’er as if ’e would eat ’er, whilst she sang and played to ’im. ’E never said a word about marrying Miss Leyton. It was all ‘’Ally, ’Ally, ’Ally’ with ’im. And if the gal ’adn’t been a deal too clever for ’im, and wise enough to see what a vain zany ’e is, she might ’ave broken ’er ’eart over it. The conceited jackanapes!”
“But she has not fretted,” said Anthony Pennell eagerly.
“Not she! I wouldn’t let ’er! She’s meat for Captain Pullen’s master! A gal with fifteen ’undred a year in ’er own ’ands, and with a pair of eyes like that! Oh! no! ’Arriet can pick up a ’usband worth two of your cousin any day!”
“I should think so indeed,” replied Mr. Pennell fervently, “I have heard Mrs. Pullen mention Miss Brandt, but she did not prepare me for meeting so beautiful a girl. But I can hardly wonder at my cousin running away from her, Madame Gobelli. Knowing himself to be already engaged, Miss Brandt must have proved a most dangerous
companion. Perhaps he found his heart was no longer under his own control, and thought discretion the better part of valour. You must try and look upon his conduct in the best light you can!”
“Oh! well! it don’t signify much anyway, for ’e’s no miss at the Red ’Ouse, I can tell you, and ’Arriet could marry to-morrow if she chose, and to a man worthy of ’er. But now you must look at my Spode.”
She walked up to a tall cabinet at one end of the room, which was piled with china, and took up a fragile piece in her hands.
“Do you see that?” she said, turning up the plate and showing the mark upon the bottom, “there it is, you see! There’s the M. These five pieces are said to be the oldest in existence. And here’s a cup of Limoges. And that’s Majolica. Do you know the marks of Majolica? They’re some of the rarest known! A cross on a shield. The first real bit of china I ever possessed was a Strasbourg. Have you ever seen any Dutch Pottery—marked with an A.P.? I picked that up at an old Jew’s shop in the market in Naples. And this Capo di Monte, strange to say, in a back alley in Brighton. There’s nothing I like better than to grub about back slums and look for something good. Some of my best pieces ’ave come out of pawnbrokers’ shops. That plate you’re looking at is old Flemish—more than two ’undred years, I believe! It came out of the rag market at Bruges. There used to be first-rate pickings to be ’ad at Bruges and Ghent and in Antwerp some years ago, but the English ’ave pretty well cleared ’em out.”
“I never saw a better private collection, Madame Gobelli,” said Anthony Pennell, as he gloated over the delicate morsels of Sèvres and Limoges and Strasbourg. “The Baron should have had an old curiosity and bric-a-brac establishment, instead of anything so prosaic as boots and shoes.”
“O! I couldn’t ’ave ’ad it!” exclaimed the Baroness, “it would ’ave gone to my ’eart to sell a good bargain when I ’ad made it! My cups and saucers and plates and teapots are like children to me, and if I thought my Bobby would sell ’em when I was gone, I believe I should rise from my grave and whack ’im.”
The woman became almost womanly as her eyes rested lovingly on her art treasures. It seemed incongruous to Pennell, to watch her huge coarse hands, with their thick stumpy fingers and broad chestnut nails, fingering the delicate fabric with apparent carelessness. Cup after cup and vase and plate she almost tossed over each other, as she pushed some away to make room for others, and piled them up on the top of one another, until he trembled lest they should all come toppling down together.
“You are more used to handle these treasures than I am,” he remarked presently, “I should be too much afraid of smashing something, to move them so quickly as you do.”
“I never broke a bit of china in my life,” returned the Baroness energetically. “I’ve broken a stick over a man’s back, more than once, but never ’ad an accident with my plates and dishes. ’Ow do you account for that?”
“You must have a flow of good luck!” said Mr. Pennell, “I am so fearful for mine that I keep all the best under glass!”
“I ’ave more friends to ’elp me than perhaps you know of,” said the Baroness, mysteriously, “but it ain’t only that! I never let a servant dust it! Miss Wynward does it, but she’s too much afraid to do more than touch ’em with the tip of her feather brush. They come to me sometimes and complain that the china is dirty. ‘Let it be dirty,’ I say, ‘that won’t break it, but if you clean it, you will!’ Ha! ha! ha!”
At that moment Harriet Brandt entered the room, moving sinuously across the carpet as a snake might glide to its lair Anthony Pennell could not take his eyes off that gliding walk of hers. It seemed to him the very essence of grace. It distracted all his attention from the china.
“The Baron has just come in,” observed Harriet to her hostess.
“Oh! well! come along and leave the rest of the china till after dinner,” said Madame Gobelli. “Gustave likes to ’ave ’is dinner as soon as ’e comes ’ome.”
She thrust her arm through that of Anthony Pennell, and conducted him to the dining-room, where the Baron (without having
observed the ceremony of changing his coat or boots) was already seated just as he had come in, at the table. He gave a curt nod to the visitor as Mr. Pennell’s name was mentioned to him, and followed it up immediately by a query whether he would take fish. Mr. Pennell sat out the meal with increasing amazement at every course. He, who was accustomed, in consequence of his popularity, to sit at the tables of some of the highest in the land, could liken this one to nothing but a farmhouse dinner. Course succeeded course, in rapid succession, and there was no particular fault to find with anything, but the utter want of ceremony—the mingling of well-known and aristocratic names with the boot and shoe trade—and the way in which the Baron and Baroness ate and drank, filled him with surprise. The climax was reached when Mr. Milliken, who was late for dinner, entered the room, and his hostess, before introducing him to the stranger, saluted him with a resounding smack on either cheek.
Pennell thought it might be his turn next, and shuddered. But the wine flowed freely, and the Baroness, being in an undoubted good humour, the hospitality was unlimited. After dinner, the Baron having settled to sleep in an armchair, Madame Gobelli proposed that the party should amuse themselves with a game of “Hunt the slippers.”
She was robed in an expensive satin dress, but she threw herself down on the ground with a resounding thump, and thrusting two enormous feet into view, offered her slipper as an inducement to commence the game.
Pennell stood aloof, battling to restrain his laughter at the comical sight before him. The Baroness’s foot, from which she had taken the shoe, was garbed in a black woollen stocking full of holes, which displayed a set of bare toes. But, apparently quite unaware of the ludicrous object she presented, she kept on calling out for Harriet Brandt and Miss Wynward to come and complete the circle at which only Mr. Milliken and herself were seated. But Harriet shrank backwards and refused to play.
“No! indeed, Madame, I cannot. I do not know your English games!” she pleaded.
“Come on, we’ll teach you!” screamed Madame Gobelli, “’ere’s Milliken, ’e knows all about it, don’t you, Milliken? ’E knows ’ow to look for the slipper under the gal’s petticoats. You come ’ere, ’Arriet, and sit next me, and Mr. Pennell shall be the first to ’unt. Come on!”
But Miss Brandt would not “come on”. She remained seated, and declared that she was too tired to play and did not care for les jeux innocents, and she had a headache, and anything and everything, before she would comply with the outrageous request preferred to her.
Madame Gobelli grumbled at her idleness and called her disobliging, but Anthony admired the girl for her steadfast refusal. He did not like to see her in the familiar society of such a woman as the Baroness—he would have liked still less to see her engaged in such a boisterous and unseemly game as “Hunt the slipper.”
He took the opportunity of saying,
“Since you are disinclined for such an energetic game, Miss Brandt, perhaps you would oblige me by singing a song! I should so much like to hear the mandoline. Mrs. Pullen has spoken to me of your efficiency on it.”
“If Madame Gobelli wishes it, I have no objection,” replied Harriet.
“Oh! well! if you are all going to be so disagreeable as not to play a good game,” said the Baroness, as Mr. Milliken pulled her on her feet again, “’Arriet may as well sing to us! But a good romp first wouldn’t ’ave done us any ’arm!”
She adjourned rather sulkily to a distant sofa with Mr Milliken, where they entertained each other whilst Harriet tuned her mandoline and presently let her rich voice burst forth in the strains of “Oh! ma Charmante.” Anthony Pennell was enchanted. He had a passion for music, and it appealed more powerfully to him than anything else. He sat in rapt attention until Harriet’s voice had died away, and then he implored her to sing another song.
“You cannot tell what it is for me, who cares more for music than for anything else in this world, to hear a voice like yours. Why! you
will create a perfect furore when you go into society You could make your fortune on the stage, but I know you have no need of that!”
“Oh! one never knows what one may have need of,” said Harriet gaily, as she commenced “Dormez, ma belle”, and sang it to perfection.
“You must have had a very talented singing-master,” observed Pennell when the second song was finished.
“Indeed no! My only instructress was a nun in the Ursuline Convent in Jamaica. But I always loved it,” said the girl, as she ran over the strings of her mandoline in a merry little tarantelle, which made everyone in the room feel as if they had been bitten by the spider from which it took its name, and wanted above all other things to dance.
How Pennell revelled in the music and the performer! How he longed to hear from her own lips that Ralph’s treatment had left no ill effects behind it.
When she had ceased playing, he drew nearer to her, and under the cover of the Baroness’s conversation with Mr. Milliken and the Baron’s snores, they managed to exchange a few words.
“How can I ever thank you enough for the treat you have given me!” he began.
“I am very glad that you liked it!”
“I was not prepared to hear such rare talent! My experience of young ladies’ playing and singing has not hitherto been happy. But you have great genius. Did you ever sing to Mrs. Pullen whilst in Heyst?”
“Once or twice.”
“And to my cousin, Ralph Pullen?”
“Yes!”
“I cannot understand his having treated the Baroness with such scant courtesy. And you also, who had been kind enough to allow him to enjoy your society. You would not have found me so
ungrateful. But you have heard doubtless that he is going to be married shortly!”
“Yes! I have heard it!”
“And that has, I suppose, put everything else out of his head! Perhaps it may be as well, especially for his future wife. There are some things which are dangerous for men to remember—such as your lovely voice, for example!”
“Do you think so?” Harriet fixed her dark eyes on him, as she put the question.
“I am sure it will be dangerous for me, unless you will give me leave to come and hear it again. I shall not be able to sleep for thinking of it. Do you think the Baroness will be so good as to enrol me as a visitor to the house?”
“You had better ask her!”
“And if she consents, will you sing to me sometimes?”
“I am always singing or playing! There is nothing else to do here. The Baron and Baroness are almost always out, and I have no company but that of Bobby and Miss Wynward. It is terribly dull, I can tell you. I am longing to get away, but I do not know where to go.”
“Have you no friends in England?”
“Not one, except Mr. Tarver, who is my solicitor!”
“That sounds very grim. If you will let me count myself amongst your friends, I shall be so grateful.”
“I should like it very much! I am not so ignorant as not to have heard your name and to know that you are a celebrated man. But I am afraid I shall prove a very stupid friend for you.”
“I have no such fear, and if I may come and see you sometimes, I shall count myself a very happy man.”
“I am generally alone in the afternoon,” replied Miss Brandt, sophistically.
In another minute Mr Pennell was saying good-night to his hostess and asking her permission to repeat his visit at some future time.
“And if you and Miss Brandt would so far honour me, Madame Gobelli, as to come and have a little lunch at my chambers in Piccadilly, I shall feel myself only too much indebted to you. Perhaps we might arrange a matinée or a concert for the same afternoon, if it would please you? Will you let me know? And pray fix as early a date as possible. And I may really avail myself of your kind permission to come and see you again. You may be sure that I shall not forget to do so. Good-night! Good-night, Baron! Good-night, Miss Brandt!” and with a nod to Mr. Milliken he was gone.
“Ain’t ’e a nice fellow? Worth two of that conceited jackanapes, ’is cousin,” remarked the Baroness as he disappeared, “what do you think of ’im, ’Arriet?”
“Oh! he is well enough,” replied Miss Brandt with a yawn, as she prepared also to take her departure, “he is taller and broader and stronger looking than Captain Pullen—and he must be very clever into the bargain.”
“And ’e never said a word about ’is books,” exclaimed Madame Gobelli, “only fancy!”
“No! he never said a word about his books,” echoed Harriet.
C H A P T E R X I V
Anthony Pennell had promised to let Margaret Pullen hear the result of his visit to the Red House, and as he entered her presence on the following evening, she saluted him with the queries,
“Well! have you been there? Have you seen her?”
To which he answered soberly,
“Yes! I have been there and I have seen her!”
“And what do you think of her? What did she say? I hope she was not rude to you!”
“My dear Mrs. Pullen,” said Pennell, as he seated himself, and prepared for a long talk, “you must let me say in the first place, that I should never have recognised Miss Brandt from your description of her! You led me to expect a gauche schoolgirl, a half-tamed savage, or a juvenile virago. And I am bound to say that she struck me as belonging to none of the species. I sent your note of introduction to Madame Gobelli, and received a very polite invitation in return, in accordance with which I dined at the Red House yesterday.”
“You dined there!” exclaimed Margaret with renewed interest. “Oh! do tell me all about it, from the very beginning. What do you think of that dreadful woman, the Baroness, and her little humpty Baron, and did you tell Miss Brandt of Ralph’s impending marriage?”
“My dear lady, one question at a time, if you please. In the first place I arrived there rather sooner than I was expected, and Madame Gobelli had not returned from her afternoon drive, but Miss Harriet Brandt did the honours of the tea-table in a very efficient manner, and with as much composure and dignity as if she had been a duchess. We had a very pleasant time together until the Baroness burst in upon us!”
“Are you chaffing me?” asked Margaret, incredulously. “What do you really think of her?”
“I think she is, without exception, the most perfectly beautiful woman I have ever seen!”
“What!” exclaimed his companion.
She had thrown herself back in her armchair, and was regarding him as if he were perpetrating some mysterious joke, which she did not understand.
“How extraordinary; how very extraordinary!” she exclaimed at length, “that is the very thing that Ralph said of her when they first met.”
“But why extraordinary? There are few men who would not endorse the opinion. Miss Brandt possesses the kind of beauty that appeals to the senses of animal creatures like ourselves. She has a far more dangerous quality than that of mere regularity of feature. She attracts without knowing it. She is a mass of magnetism.”
“O! do go on, Mr. Pennell! Tell me how she received the news you went to break to her!”
“I never broke it at all. There was no need to do so. Miss Brandt alluded to the magnificent Captain Pullen’s marriage with the greatest nonchalance. She evidently estimates him at his true value, and does not consider him worth troubling her head about!”
“You astonish me! But how are we to account then for the attitude she assumed towards Miss Leyton, and the boast she made of Ralph’s attentions to her?”
“Bravado, most likely! Miss Leyton goes to the Red House all aflame, like an angry turkey cock, and accuses Miss Brandt of having robbed her of her lover, and what would you have the girl do? Not cry Peccavi, surely, and lower her womanhood? She had but one course—to brave it out. Besides, you have heard only one side of the question, remember! I can imagine Miss Leyton being very ‘nasty’ if she liked!”
“You forget the letters which Miss Brandt wrote to Ralph and which were found in his empty grate at Richmond!”
