What are narrative maps?

  • Nat Turner

    • Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

  • Narratives:

    • Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

    Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

  • If you did not bring your own elements, create a narrative map of the life of a formerly enslaved person as relayed in their autobiography. Make use of the available open access primary sources that we have reviewed in previous weeks to populate your map.

    • Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

    Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

  • Using StoryMapJS, build a narrative map that consists of at least five elements. Use the narrative map to relay some significant aspect of your topic. Example: Denmark Vesey’s Life Up to the Revolt

    • Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

    Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.

    A narrative map tells a story plotted through space. The point of a narrative map is not to display data. Rather it is to provide an explicit visual counterpart to the implicit spatial underpinnings of a narrative or argument. Narrative maps are broadly useful across the disciplines, since many texts have a spatial component. For example, a class on literature might ask the students to trace the movements of characters within James Joyce’s Dubliners, or some other work of literature. Another class might look for the movements of Augustine of Hippo around the Mediterranean. Students in a class on American religion might each take a different itinerant minister’s autobiography and trace their movements. An art or music class might track the development of certain kinds of painting or musical styles across space.

    Narrative maps are pedagogically considered lightweight. By lightweight, I mean that learning how to use this map demands comparatively little of you in terms of preparing spatial data or learning mapping techniques, but it will get you thinking spatially.

    An example narrative map in StoryMap JS

    You could use any number of mapping programs to create a narrative map, including Google Maps or Google Earth. We will use the Knight Foundation’s StoryMap JS, created for journalists but also useful for teaching. StoryMap JS offers a slide-show-like interface where the user can connect text and images to places in a sequential narrative. Students will likely find the interface familiar if they have ever used PowerPoint or Keynote. To create such a map, students will need to find places mentioned in a text, which they can then identify on a map. Ideally, they should also find pictures of those places and quotations about them in the text.

    Below is a sample StoryMap. (See the example in its own window.) You will see James Joyce’s short story “An Encounter” from Dubliners (1914) and mapped the narrative of two boys’ journey around Dublin.

    Creating a Story Map

    (I am providing a template to use, but if you prefer creating a Story Map with your own research, please do! If you do, make sure you have a good combination of text and images)

    Follow these steps to create a map with StoryMap:

    1. Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    2. Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    3. Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    4. Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?

    For detailed instructions on how to create a StoryMap, click here.