Week 6: Narratives
Hello class and welcome to Week 6,
In this week we are going to talk about how to structure a story, and introduce the concept of story arcs. You may have heard of this phenomenon in other contexts, such as when you studied literature or theater in grade-school or for your undergraduate degree, but we will be applying this concept to figures. I will go over several commonly occurring story arcs and show how figures can be matched to each element of the story arc. We will read Chapter 7 in “Storytelling with Data” and Chapter 29 in “Fundamentals of Data Visualization”.
An example of a story organized along according to a specific story arc is this short one about Stephen Hawking:
Opening: Let me tell you a story about the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Challenge: He was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at age 21, one year into his PhD—and was given two years to live.
Action: Hawking did not accept this predicament and started pouring all his energy into doing science.
Resolution: Hawking ended up living to be 76, became one of the most influential physicists of his time, and did all of his seminal work while being severely disabled.
We will learn about more story arcs and practice using them to construct figures.
Look at Module 6 for more information about the week, including the specific reading assignments.
Thanks,
Sincerely,
George