Academic Work Sample

COMMLD 537: Principles of Storytelling for Social Impact | University of Washington, Master of Communications in Digital Media | Winter 2025 Instructor: Lauren Kessler, award-winning narrative nonfiction author and UW professor

This storyboard was the final project for a graduate-level storytelling course taught by Lauren Kessler, a nationally recognized narrative nonfiction author whose work spans journalism, books and multimedia storytelling. The course focused on the fundamentals of nonfiction storytelling for social impact — including story anatomy, narrative structure, audience strategy, media selection and the ethics of storytelling — with an emphasis on using a small, personal story to illuminate a larger issue.

The assignment required students to map an original, research-driven story across a six-beat narrative arc and write a fully realized opening scene of up to 500 words. Students were also expected to make deliberate decisions about format, platform and media use based on narrative possibilities, audience and purpose.

The piece uses a personal experience — unraveling and upcycling a discarded polyester sweater — as the entry point into a broader investigation of the fast fashion industry's environmental and social costs. The storyboard integrates original reporting throughout, including interviews with small business owners Maggie Nelson of Poppy Lu Clothing and Taylor Randal of Soft Paw Vintage, a consumer who has transitioned entirely to secondhand purchasing, and a SanMar wholesale contact on unsold inventory disposal. Supporting research draws on textile waste data, consumer behavior studies and Lily Fulop's book Wear, Repair, Repurpose.

The six-beat structure moves from personal opener through inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution — culminating in both an intimate personal moment and a broader call to action. The climax centers on the slow fashion dilemma's core tension: ethical fashion remains a privilege for those with the time and money to prioritize it, a tension surfaced through a real interview subject working two jobs.

The opening scene — written as the publishable lead for the final piece — demonstrates literary narrative technique applied to social impact journalism, blending sensory scene-setting, personal voice and investigative framing.

The project reflects the ability to identify a story with genuine social stakes, structure complex material across a complete narrative arc, conduct original interviews and research, and write with both clarity and craft for a general audience on a topic with environmental, economic and social equity dimensions — skills directly applicable to storytelling for academic and mission-driven communications roles.

For this final assignment, you will create a storyboard – a graphic representation – of your story. This is a tool to organize your material into a narrative and to plot that narrative, section by section, scene by scene.

The storyboard is a key creative tool used by journalists, novelists, screenwriters, podcasters, advertising copywriters, and others when plotting a story. 

A storyboard is created by a series of squares (or cells), each representing a section (information) or scene (narrative action). Here’s one you can use. (There are many others just like this one.)

 https://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/template_strybrd_8panels.docLinks to an external site.

We will SHARE these in class. You can create a digital presentation using the tools of your choice.

For the “Plus,” this assignment MUST include your opening scene. If your story is text only, you would write this scene. If you have proposed an audio or video story, the opening would be the written script for this opening scene. The maximum word count for the opener is 500.

The core creative assignment for the term is the finding and shaping of a story, which involves significant background research (the larger context) and whatever it takes to gather the material necessary to plot the “small story.” Your choice of media/ platform to tell that story is dependent on the story itself, the audience you want to reach, and other important factors such as the needs of the organization, access, resources, time constraints, and ethical concerns. 

Any single medium (text, audio, still image, moving image) could work. So could any combination of media, for example: a photographic slide show with audio; a photographic slide show with text; text with links to audio; text accompanied by photos or mini-videos. What does this story deserve?  What is possible?  What tells it best?  Those are the criteria.

Take your time with this. Try out different organizing narrative structures. What would most engage your audience? Ask me! I am here to listen and give guidance. Your first idea may not be your best idea. But if you leave this until the last moment, your first idea will be the one you use.

Unraveling Fast Fashion, One Thread at a Time

OPENER

The first time I rescued a discarded fast-fashion sweater, I wasn’t just saving fabric — I was unraveling a bigger story.

The thrift store smelled of worn denim and a commingling of detergent, dust, and mildew, a mix of past lives and fresh(ish) starts. I ran my fingers over the racks, brushing against polyester blends and acrylic knits — synthetic fibers that would outlive their first owners. My hand stopped on a pink sweater — cheaply made, impulse-bought, and abandoned — stuffed between a moth-bitten wool cardigan and a stiff, sequined prom dress.

It was a polyester blend in a shade of pink that had probably been trendy for a season, its tag still attached, a final clearance sticker peeling at the edges, the original price slashed down twice. Someone had grabbed it in a rush — maybe from a sale bin, maybe as an impulse buy during a lunchtime errand. Did they wear it once before it stretched out of shape? Or did it never fit quite right, yet somehow never make it back to the return counter? Either way, it had ended up here — discarded, unwanted, on its way to oblivion.

I took it home, spread it out on my table, and found the loose thread. Gently, I tugged. The stitches unraveled, the fabric deconstructed, the thread wound into neat little skeins — new again. A second life awaited, ready for transformation.

As I crocheted a tiny sweater for my miniature dachshund, Sable, I thought about how fast fashion thrives on disposability. And yet, here, in my hands, was proof that something different was possible. I saw it in the tight stitches forming under my fingers, in the way the yarn reshaped itself into something new.

Slow fashion — the counter-movement to this culture of waste — isn’t just about handmade clothes. It’s about rethinking consumption entirely. Upcycling, repairing, and making instead of mindlessly buying.

But could it truly stand against the tidal wave of cheaply made, disposable fashion? Could patience, skill, and intention really compete with convenience and cost?

I wasn’t sure. But I knew one thing — I had to find out.

Written by Sabrina E. Maldonado | Winter 2025