This is a fabulous video of Kurt Vonnegutt talking about the shapes of stories. Notice the different types of graphs he produces? This is a fairly mathematical procedure, and I love both the idea of embedding everyday variables on the axis, and of representing the rise and fall of the fortunes of the protagonist in the graph. I remember my 11th grade English teacher sharing with us the common graphs of Shakespeare’s trajedy and comedies in an effort to help us understand the two distinct genres.
Wouldn’t this be an interesting activity to do with your students?
Blair says:
I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but Jam Phat takes the lyrics or themes of hip-hop and rap songs and turns them into graphs and charts. Obviously, given the content & themes of many hip hop and rap songs most of the graphs aren’t suitable for class, but I use the ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems’ one as intro in class then challenge students to come up with their own relationship they can graph. http://graphjam.com has more examples though most are low quality or inappropriate. Vonnegut’s examples are much more suitable & thoughtful.
July 10, 2011 — 2:16 am