I took part in the digital storytelling workshop last summer, in the period of time after my second-year exams. I was working on ideas for my dissertation, making the transition to more independent study, and the course really facilitated this for me – allowed me an opportunity to think about my own academic interests without the limit of a form I have always known.
One of the things we discussed early on was our general tendency to label our own experiences, our own stories, as boring or unimportant. Through accepting that this may be the case sometimes but also being pushed to consider the times in which it isn’t, I was able to put together my story without considering so much its objective interest or worth, but rather what could be gotten by telling and hearing authentic stories. The use of varied media rather than just the spoken or the written word has always been a part of storytelling through illustrations and performance but considering it in terms of online content encouraged me to shift my perspective on what ‘storytelling’ has to be both in terms of form and content.
In my story I specifically focus on the lack of literature with lesbian characters that I had growing up, and the way that YA fiction specifically is progressing in terms of diversity. This topic ended up being the focus of my 3rd year dissertation project, which was a direct result of the process of making and sharing this digital story. Although this has always been the element of literature that interests me most, it wasn’t until I completed the digital story project that I even considered it as a topic for a project so important to my academic career. Being able to take myself out of the general framework for academic work and consider what is actually integral to my story as an English student genuinely transformed my outlook on the subject going into my third year, and allowed me to see the subject as something that can move with digital advances but also my own interests.
