[nobe-l] Apollo 11 Story

Wed Jan 23 13:54:46 UTC 2019

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Subject: NOBE-L Digest, Vol 176, Issue 3

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Today's Topics:

   1. Hi Tina. First of all, it sounds like you're putting your considerable talent to work. I can't answer all of your questions, but I'll try to answer a few of them. How about engaging them with weightlessness. Talk about how the astronauts ate, and how you would manage as a blind person. They are going to be doing some travel training, so how would you do that? About sound, the sound of the Saturn V taking off was dramatic for me. The landing was exciting. If you can find it, there was once an early computer game called Lunar Landing. I don't know if it has been converted to run on anything today. I remember playing it on a computer and teletype. Some background music might be good, there is always Thus Spoke Zarathustra, it seemed to do well for 2001. 
For fun stories, look up Heinlein's The Man who Sold the Moon. I'll give humor some thought. I'm sure there must have been some, but the only ones I remember probably wouldn't work in your situation.
Good luck! It really sound like you're working on a fun program. Feedback and Vend Fest (Tina Hansen)

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 22:59:52 -0800
From: "Tina Hansen" <th404 at comcast.net>
To: <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "'National Organization of Blind Educators Mailing List'"
	<nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nobe-l] Apollo 11 Story Feedack and Vend Fest
Message-ID: <001801d4b2e9$3df35bb0$b9da1310$@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Thanks to those of you who have offered feedback on my Apollo 11 narrative.
However, I do have a few questions and observations.

I apologize for this "vent fest," but I feel like I need to settle this in my mind. This started with me 25 years ago when I attended an event at the planetarium at my community college. When I got out of there, I felt there was a mismatch between the speaker and the audience. I don't want that to happen.

This is the first time I've attempted to write anything for kids. I don't work with kids, nor do I have any of my own.

Part of my concern is due to the way our culture takes in information. As a whole, we live in a rather loud culture, and the media seems to make people expect everything to be super dramatic, elaborate, cinematic or theatrical.
The visual world is especially notorious for special effects, but as anyone who has seen Star Wars knows, the sound design is incredible. And many films have incredible sound tracks.

Since we likely won't use visuals, we have to include everything in our audio. We plan to include the voices of the astronauts, but is it necessary to use rap or song within our narrative as a way to hold their interest? Has it gotten so bad that we feel we have to resort to gimmicks to keep them interested? Do we have to compete with the media?

I'm not concerned with anything after the narrative, since we're using experiments as a way to get the students engaged.

I'm doing the best I can, but I'm concerned about avoiding potential traps.
I don't want to talk down to this audience, nor do I wish to dumb the story down. If the story is too shallow, it won't be worth anything. But how do I encourage them to go deeper if they're interested. If we just tell the story and leave it there, they'll think it doesn't mean anything to them.

What about humor. I don't want to "try to be funny," but how can I use humor, especially since we're recording the narrative in advance?

I wonder if the story needs an ending that gets them to think. I want them to think about what they want to be when they grow up.

I have this feeling that I need to connect it to the NFB somehow, but how do I do that?

I'm meeting with my project team on Friday, and I hope to get some feedback from team members. If needed, I'll be dashing off a third draft to the lists for more feedback.

Any thoughts about these observations? Thanks.

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