ThePinkRosebush_3.wmv Karen Moynihan lesson plan on digital storytelling.doc Birchwood Road_0001.wmv  ThePinkRosebush_3.wmv The occasion that promts my story is a comment from an antique dealer about tenements. The word tenement conjures up many connotations, often not positive associations. But I grew up in a tenement, and I wouldn't change my chidlh ood there for anything. The antique dealer was so disdainful, and I want to tell the story of a happy neighborhood and dispel the negative attitude people have about Lawrence. So the transformation that Ohler talks about should occur in the person who hears my story. I will talk about the neighbors and events and attitudes that shaped me.

I don't have a lot of good photographs from those years, so I will have to be creative with the imagery.

Joanna, my interviewer, asked me to describe my childhood idea of a perfect day.  It would be a no school day in nice weather, maybe 75%, no humidity, warm enough to go outside without a coat.  I would wake up early and read one of my books in a big chair next to an open window.  When I heard voices in the neighborhood outside, I would go out and find other kids to play with.  My favorite activity was rollerskating.  I had the kind of skates that attached to the bottoms of thick soled shoes; I wore the skate key around my neck.  The sidewalk on my street was made in squares of poured concrete.  I liked the sound my metal wheels made on the sidewalk.  We would go up the street as far as the sidewalk went and then start down, gaining speed until we would careen into my driveway like speed skaters in the Olympics.  We had no helmets, knee guards, elbow guards, or anything to protect us, but we never gave injury a thought.

I have changed my mind about the story I plan to tell based on our viewing of "Ironing" yesterday.  I realized my story as planned was too episodic, and I liked the tightness of "Ironing."  I also thought my photographs would have to be crystal clear, but the Polaroids in "Ironing" worked even though they have deteriorated over time.  The writer had enough current shots to balance the old.  I also liked his structure and the metaphor that he used to control the story.  So I have decided to write about the rose bush that grew outside the front door of my childhood home.