Alcohol, Assets and Me

Well, here it finally is, my digital story. I plan on using this story as a way to introduce a unit on Developmental Assets with students in my Transitions class. The class is designed for students going through a transition in their life, whether it is from a rural area to Anchorage, one school to another, one household or another, or any other major life change. Since their lives are changing and most of them don’t have a routine quite yet, I think it is important to talk about working on building positive things in one’s life now, to help them feel in charge of their life, rather than feeling like circumstances are taking them for a ride.

My story is actually quite personal, as I share details about my past experiences with alcohol. While it puts my reputation at risk a little bit, I’ve found that the one thing that keeps my students engaged and interested is a sincere personal story. I created the story map with this in mind, so hopefully it comes across as sincerely as I wrote it. From our discussions, I know that alcohol is something that affects the majority of my students’ lives, either directly or indirectly, and so I believe that this is probably the most important thing that they can discuss in this class.

Finally, here is the rubric that I would use to assess students on a digital project. This rubric emphasizes the student choosing a topic that they are interested in and then creating a connection with their audience, using planning and understanding of media guidelines and digital tools to help them achieve those goals.