Kishotenketsu story structure

For each lecture in a recent class, I thought about structuring them like a story. The Hero’s Journey (or the Pixar story structure) is most common in the West, but I happened upon the idea of kishotenketsu, a traditional Japanese story structure that lends itself better to teaching.

It has four beats:

1. Ki - Introduction: Establish the setting, characters, and context
2. Shō - Development: Develop the situation introduced in Part 1, add details and depth
3. Ten - Twist: Introduce something new, unexpected, or unrelated that reframes everything
4. Ketsu - Conclusion: Reconcile the twist with the earlier elements, bringing harmony or understanding

The twist is a something juxtaposed that causes a perspective change. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big plot reversal.

Ki: An old man tends his garden every morning Shō: He carefully waters each plant, removing weeds, nurturing growth Ten: His granddaughter watches from the window, sketching him Ketsu: Years later, she plants her own garden, remembering his patience

As I was working on my class, I asked myself, for each module, what’s the twist? What’s the new information that makes us think differently about the basic way of approaching it?

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu