Ch. 5 Reflection: "Thinking About Story: The Story Core, Story Mapping, Story Types"

"...this ad hooked me in like the time
I ordered a Pocket Fisherman."

This post took me a lot longer to write than I expected it would.  You see it all started when I read the following line in Ohler's book: "Because it's [story core] subtle, it can easily pierece the "neocortex" and engage audience members emotionally, without cuasing them to question too much of what they're experiencing."(location 1115)  I noticed that word "neocortex" and it got me thinking, I have no idea what a neocortext is!  So I started searching the internet and learned that it is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and that it is responsible for higher order thinking.  While trying to figure out what that ment I went to youtube and searched for videos about the neocortex, thinking, learning, and story telling.  One video in particular caught my attention and my time.  It turned out be a 14 minute ad trying to sale me a foreign language program on audio CD.  I was so caught up in the narrative of the video that I hardly processed that I was being pitched to.  Normally I would close my browser window, but this hooked me in like the time I ordered a Pocket Fisherman at 3:00 in the morning.  The language CD ad worked so well because it was a story and I love stories!  That is the curse of the neocortex, it craves rituals like the language and process of storytelling.  We are prewired as humans to not only recognize what Ohler calls the "story core" but to sort new information and experiences into story cores.  As and educator this connection is very important because learning objectives presented in the language of stories are more familiar and naturally lower the affect of the learner so that new knowledge can be internally processed.  Speaking of processing, I need to go look up my language CD order and make sure that my credit card processed.  My neocortex is craving me some Portuguess.

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom:New Media Pathways to Literacy,

             Learning, and Creativity [Kindle DX version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com