1. Verbal Storytelling
a written story for Cowbird
Povide a brief introduction to the story, for the benefit of visitors outside our class.
What would you like other students outside your class to know before they view
your story? You may have noticed this kind of information on the student samples I
featured on digitalwriting101.net
Ever since I was a junior in high school I have wanted to be a doctor. This is the
story of how I broke my arm for the fifth time and realized my passion for medicine.
Whether it be riding my bike a little too fast, rollerblading down the steepest hill,
showing off in gym class, getting a nasty hit in football or even slipping on a beach
ball, I seem to put myself in tough situations. With the love of going fast and hitting
hard, come the consequences of getting injured. I have broken my arm on five
separate occasions and all five had to be surgically repaired. Many people think I am
unlucky, others think I should quit before I get hurt again, but really, my misfortune
has led me to my future career. When I broke my arm for the fifth and most recent
time, I was on my high school football team. We were playing our rival school for
their homecoming game and I was having a great game up until I got injured. I was
on the kickoff team after we had just scored and I began to take off down the field.
When I had reached my full speed I was blind-sided by someone from the other
team. I was instantly knocked out. I got up from the collision about 5 seconds after I
had been hit and I was completely shocked. When I looked down at my arm, I could
see that it was hanging down from the middle of my forearm. I looked down again
only to see my bones disconnected from one another and only held together by my
skin covered in dirt. At this point, my coaches were on their way to get me and but I
got up and ran off the field and met them halfway. I was rushed to the bench and the
athletic trainer did his best to take care of my arm.
My parents then came down from the stands and met me at the sideline bench. I was
then taken to the ambulance and then the hospital. When I got to the hospital, my
girlfriend met us there and we sat in the ER. I was asked many questions about what
had happened including what I had eaten before the game. I told them I had eaten a
Powerbar right before the game and they said because of this, I would have to wait
till the morning to get surgery. I remember when I was in a room alone that night
waiting for my X-Rays and I was so upset at what happened [reflect how it changed].
I shed my first tear of the night at that moment, not because of the pain but because
I thought I would never be able to play high school sports again. This was when I
had my major turning point. [wording - continue] - explain transition.
After a couple hours had passed in the ER, some of my closest teammates came by
and told me that they had won the game for me. After a sleepless night of waiting in
the ER, I went in for surgery the next morning and met my orthopedic surgeon. After
getting out of surgery and having frequent meetings with my surgeon, I knew

2. exactly what I wanted to do. Helping people is my main goal in life. I want to be the
person that the child with an injury looks to for help, I want to help people that have
been in my situation and give them the comfort that they are in good hands. I want
to be an orthopedic surgeon.
Cowbird Stories
If you posted your verbal story on Cowbird, you may simply type the title of your
story in the blog post and make the title into a hyperlink to the public-facing
Cowbird page that features the story. To add visual interest to your post, you may
embed the cover image you used on Cowbird above the link.
Provide an informal commentary (or self-evaluation) that covers the following:
1. What did you learn about yourself as a storyteller from the process of developing this
story?
I learned that although the storyteller should be true to the original story, it is crucial to add
suspense, or stakes to the story to captivate the audience. This is what I tried to do with my
Cowbird story. At the beginning I mention that I have broken my arm on five separate occasions
and that this has led me to my future career. By saying that this story has led to future career,
I was hoping to raise the stakes. I do not explain until the very end what this means because I
was trying to get the audience wanting to read my story. I also tried to use good imagery and
put emotion into the story whenever possible.
2. What did you enjoy most about telling a story using this particular approach to
storytelling (i.e., verbal, graphic, or cinematic)?
I thought this was great because it allowed me to explore my thoughts and really think of a
story that is meaningful to me and tell it in more of a poetic rhetoric. I tried to avoid just
simply stating a cool story about myself but I tried to give it meaning and importance. I believe
publishing my story on cowbird really help me do that. The cover image for my Cowbird I
thought would be really intriguing and get my audience wondering what this story was going to
be about.
3. What did you find most challenging about this approach?
I thought it was tough sometimes to make certain parts of the story really exciting. I tried to
use imagery and many descriptive words to covey the emotion. I thought it was also difficult to
end the story. In my drafts, I had the story ending as kind of a cliffhanger and I just expected
the audience to know what I wanted to do because of this story. After going through a
workshop and getting feedback on my story, my classmates thought it would be better if I
really finished the story with a good conclusive ending.

3. 4. What does your final version reveal about what you learned from the assigned
readings for each approach (Shimmering Images for verbal, Making Comics for graphic,
and Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect for cinematic)?
My final version reveals that although a story that might not sound to have too much emotion
or stakes attached to it, if it is meaningful to you then you need to find that connection with
the audience to show how important the story is. In my story, it already had plenty of emotions
and stakes on the line; it was just a matter of putting those into a story that could really
capture the audience. "Your job as a memoirist is to claim your own truth, to accept
responsibility for your actions, and to make sense of the actions of others in the context of a
story”. I thought this quote from Shimmering Images was really helpful when putting each of
my stories together, especially the verbal storytelling.
5. What advice would you offer a new storyteller who is about to begin working on a story
that follows the same approach?
I would say to tell a story that is meaningful to you. This is important because the audience can
really tell if a story is not genuinely meaningful to the storyteller. I would also say to keep true
to the story but don’t hesitate to add some emotion and imagery to connect with your
audience.
Collin Bennett
Major: EBIO
Graduating: May 2015
At the bottom of the post, include a brief bio that provides viewers with info about you they
might find relevant and interesting. You may use your full name or your first name only. If I
feature your story on DigitalWriting101.net, I'll include the bio.