Enhancing storytelling through technology

Kathleen Vandenberg. Photo by Cydney Scott.

Earlier this year, CGS Master Lecturer of Rhetoric Kathleen Vandenberg won the 2022 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology, which recognizes the Boston University faculty member who best exemplified innovation in teaching by using technology.

In her Rhetoric classes, Vandenberg teaches students effective communication that marries writing, short opinion documentaries, and podcasts, among other mediums.

Student Sarah Knotts (’22, SAR’24) spoke with Vandenberg about her reaction to winning the award, how she integrates technology into her class assignments, and her view of the future of storytelling.

What was it like for you to hear that you had received the 2022 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology?

It was a big surprise. BU is an amazing place with so many talented people, so when my colleagues nominated me, I was shocked, flattered and humbled by it.

How do you integrate technology into your class to teach students about effective communication?

We start off the semester learning more traditional means of communication, like writing and giving speeches. As [students] learn about technology, I still emphasize the content, purpose, and the audience when we start moving into the other assignments.

I really try to break down the composing process of the things I teach. For instance, for the podcast that my students are doing right now, first they learn about good interview questions and then they have to read the subject material they’re going to be talking about and form good interview questions.

Then I introduce how to use the mics and how to set up Adobe Audition. They do the interviews and then we talk about how to edit the interviews. They actually have to transcribe what they’ve interviewed word for word so that they can really edit the script of what they have. Then they would go back and they might rerecord because they realized there’s material they need to add once they’ve looked at their script. The next week, they might go back and add soundtrack and sounds that will help bring it to life.

Even though it’s technology, just like with their papers, it’s still about the steps for composing and making deliberate choices as well as circling back in the process to revise.

What would you say is the role that modern technology plays in how we tell stories?

In some ways, it circles back to earlier communication forms. Communication started out as strictly oral. In the 20th century you started having radio. Now we’re circling back with podcasts. I think even 20 years ago people wouldn’t have thought now we’d be listening to what’s basically radio but recorded, or that students would have any interest in that.

Storytelling is a big part of human history. I think now storytelling is more widespread, which means more people can do it and reach more people. You could decide, you want to have a podcast, and if you do it well, and you hit the right audience, you could potentially have thousands or millions of listeners. There’s just so many more creative ways to do it. You’re not just bound by either your voice or the printed word or graphics or even just photographs. You have moving images and sound effects, and you can blend sound and visions and writing visuals and writing. So more creativity and more audience impact would be the biggest effect on storytelling.

How do you incorporate storytelling into your teaching style?

I came out of a Ph.D. in rhetoric and a lot of academic writing is more expository than it is storytelling. You’re explaining a concept or you’re making an argument and you might draw on an anecdote to make your point. Let’s say you’re arguing against the death penalty, you may relay some story about someone who is unfairly subject to the death penalty.

However, storytelling the way the students are doing it is a different sort of thing. For instance, on this podcast they’re doing now they’re having to explain their choice of concept that has to do with 19th century changes. One of the concepts is noise pollution, and so, when I say storytelling for them, I mean that something like noise pollution has a history. It got started at some time, things happened throughout history and then things are happening now. So they’re looking for the narrative arc. So they can say something like sound was first labeled as pollution in the 19th century. The middle part of the story can be about how after the industrial revolution, noise became more of a problem with machines and factories. Finally, the end of the story is like where things are now with noise pollution, so different laws around how many decibel levels you can have, for instance, on Comm Ave from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. It’s recognizing the narrative arc even when you’re talking about something like a concept and being able to compose that. They have six to eight minutes to tell the story of where it started, what happened over the years, and where it is now.

Why do you think it is important for students and faculty to utilize digital media tools like Adobe?

It’s what you all are going to be using in your jobs. All of us have access to taking endless videos and images, so there’s nothing special about getting an assignment to take pictures or film. Sometimes people will call something a podcast and they just mean they just want you to record your voice talking about something. I think people come to BU for more than that, and they should be taught actual composing skill, like how these things are done professionally. They should be introduced to some of the programs that are used professionally, nationally and internationally. So when BU got the Adobe Creative Cloud for free, that was huge. If you wanted to purchase that on your own as a student or faculty it would be very expensive, so it’s just a fantastic opportunity to get to use these tool that people use in the professional world. You can make really professional looking products or projects with them. I encourage my colleagues to make use of the tools given. I like to think that what I teach my students, they can use well past when they’re in my classroom.

How do we continue to value “traditional writing” (aka purely textual pieces) with the advancement of digital media technology?

Each of these mediums has their drawbacks and their benefits. Writing allows you to be really nuanced, complex and really unpack an idea. The reader has to be actively engaged in finding the meaning if it’s anything complex. It can demand that kind of engagement since there’s not a shortcut for it.

But then something like an image, whether it’s still or moving, can really have a really overwhelming emotional impact that could be very difficult to do through textual writing unless a you’re really talented artist. Sound has a power all its own because to hear someone’s voice can be so much more intimate than to read what they wrote from a distance.

I think the technologies will change, but I don’t think we’re ever going to become a totally image based or sound based, and certainly not just a text based culture again. I think we’ll just get better at composing all these things. I think we’re going to keep mixing all these mediums for some time to come.

— Interview conducted by Sarah Knotts