" "Some scientists have contended that figures of speech like "a rough day" are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more."This means, that the frontal cortex—the area of your brain responsible to experience emotions—can't be activated with these phrases. It's something that might be worth remembering when crafting your next story. "
Thursday, 24 August 2017
How our brains react to stories
Sunday, 6 August 2017
Fictions Influence
An article about how an authors world view influences their work. The article also talks about how an author should show things to their audience rather than tell them. The example given is not to tell the audience a character is bored but to describe their actions, posture and expression.
The author of this article talks about the importance of not preaching your own world view but warns that through your writing your world view will inevitably come out in some capacity. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, stories tend to have a point to them or some kind of lesson that is learnt it is possible to misuse these kinds of stories to indoctrinate. This is related to some other research suggesting that the use of ambiguity prevents indoctrination by having no clearly defined outcome. The reader is encouraged to draw their own conclusions reacting to the narrative with their knowledge from their own experiences.
The point about showing rather than telling is a useful lesson for my practice but doesn't really fit my essay. The second point gives another perspective on the use of ambiguity and why i could not only be useful to stimulate a thought process but also to remove the authors specific world view from the narrative.
The author of this article talks about the importance of not preaching your own world view but warns that through your writing your world view will inevitably come out in some capacity. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, stories tend to have a point to them or some kind of lesson that is learnt it is possible to misuse these kinds of stories to indoctrinate. This is related to some other research suggesting that the use of ambiguity prevents indoctrination by having no clearly defined outcome. The reader is encouraged to draw their own conclusions reacting to the narrative with their knowledge from their own experiences.
The point about showing rather than telling is a useful lesson for my practice but doesn't really fit my essay. The second point gives another perspective on the use of ambiguity and why i could not only be useful to stimulate a thought process but also to remove the authors specific world view from the narrative.
"Research on the real-life benefits of fiction isn't new. In 2013, researchers showed that reading fiction could help boost people's theory of mind. Several months later, a study came out suggesting that couples could use movies as discussion points to better understand their own problems."
This article is interesting but more focussed on adults, I have found a number of studies that are focussed on the influence fiction can have on childrens attitudes and intellectual and emotional development. I don't think this study offer anything new to add to the essay and is not specific enough to my chosen subject. I need to make sure I make the best use of research selection in my essay to keep it concise and focussed. My research needs to be separated into core theories that form the core of the essay and supporting evidence related to theories or that give context to theorists opinions and perspectives.
Saturday, 5 August 2017
Myths and morals
I found lists of fairytales and myths that have moral meanings and life lessons central to their narrative. I would like to create a book where a child meets the characters and mythical creature and questions them about their purpose, forcing them to admit their true nature. One of the links is to an article from a catholic education website that tackles the idea of morals in fairytales and their importance for encouraging moral behaviour.
Morals in fiction
In this article Mary Gordon argues against fiction being able to influence moral codes. She talks about authors not having the control of knowing how their work will be received or what kind of lasting impression it will leave on the reader. As the subtitle says her argument is that fiction can present us with moral complexity not moral certainty.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Links
This article the benefits of fantasy stories for children and tackles the negative view of fantasy fiction. The author of the article quotes a variety of practitioners and theorists that discuss varying view points of the relationship between fantasy and reality in this context. I would like to look more at the work of these researchers.
Factual Learning
An article about a study suggesting children chose factual stories over fiction more often that adults. The authors of the study suggest that when children are being told stories by older children and adults they are learning new things about the world from a source with greater knowledge and the stories are a form of research about the world they live in.
healthcare
Some interesting ideas about how illustrated narratives can be used within healthcare to tell the stories of everyone involved, from patients and family members to health care professionals. These stories have been found to be have positive effects both physically and mentally. This research highlights the benefits of using illustrated narratives to communicate stories to help people understand a situation from different perspectives. The researchers found that the narratives were more beneficial than using simply communicating raw data. This is an interesting practical use for illustrated narratives that goes beyond educational benefits
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