The Faculty of Teacher Education at Oslo University College (HiO) is a so-called ASP school. It means that we are a part of UNESCO´s global network of schools, the Associated Schools Project. We are thereby committed to focussing on the following study themes:

1. World concerns and the role of the United Nations system
2. Human rights, democracy and tolerance
3. lntercultural learning
4. Environmental concern

As one way of realising our partnership in the ASP network, our institution is taking part in the current national ASP project, a storyline relay involving various schools in Norway, at the primary, lower and upper secondary, up to the teacher education level. At HiO, it is the students doing English 20 (grunnfag) this year who are involved in the project. 

The national ASP project
The project was born at the national ASP seminar at Utstein Kloster outside Stavanger last year. One of the central actors on the ASP scene, Jon Møller, gave a presentation about his experience with the storyline method at his upper secondary school Saltdal in Rognan. A number of schools responded enthusiastically to his suggestion to extend the idea of a storyline into a relay process from school to school, partly as a way of keeping the network alive and active even between the annual gatherings. It would also serve as a potentially good way of making the internationalisation projects at the different schools relevant to the learners by involving pupils in their partner schools somewhere in the world in the storytellling. At least the possibility of including material from their internationalisation project as part of the unfolding story makes this approach very promising.

The story itself
Utstein Kloster boasts a ghost called Cecilia, who at night is sometimes seen wandering restlessly through her rooms at the monastery. One of the teachers at our seminar got to know Cecilia a bit better than the rest of us one dark night and through this medium we got to know the true story about why poor Cecilia can´t find rest until her daughter´s fate is fully disclosed. This is where the pupils at the ASP schools are helping her – by creating their part of the story, by completing Cecilia´s family saga! At the end of the (story-)line, she will at long last be able to rest and stop haunting the chilly rooms at the monastery.

Cecilia´s story (Det spøker på Utstein Kloster) is a storyline in a rather special sense of the word. It is a series of instalments or episodes in a family saga, and as such it differs a little bit from other examples of that genre. Our focus is on the mothers and their daughters up through the ages. Starting with the birth of Cecilia´s little girl in 1534, students at Saltdal have so far been able to establish the fate of one of her anscestors, a certain woman called Anne Bonny, a female pirate (born in Cork on March 8, 1700). The story about Anne´s daughter Cecilia has been written by students at Sinnes lower secondary school. The English students at Oslo University College, HiO, have taken upon them to create the story of Anne´s mother Mary Boyne and her mother Cecilia, born in Whitfield, England. Our contribution will be the fourth instalment, but chronologically, it will occur in front of the story about Anne Bonny. The schools invoolved are free to choose which part of the storyline to complete (at least the early schools)

So far, the following instalments have been created:

1. Det spøker på Utstein kloster (Gamlebyen skole, Oslo)
2. Historien om Anne Bonny (Saltdal videregående skole)
3. Reisa mot vest! (Sinnes skule)

Framework for the HiO storyline instalment 
As the ASP project develops there are more and more constraints on the participants with respect to creative license. The facts of your episode have to tally with the previous and the following ones if these are already given, as well as the general principle of the storyline method of learning, i.e. that even though the story is invented, real-world facts in it should be likely and probable. If you place your character in a given historical period, this person´s life should be true to facts that are known about life at that particular time in history. See the timeline with relevant links.

In other words, the students at HiO have to take heed of the following "facts", both textual and contextual:

• The time of your story is the last half of the 17th century in England, with the main character ending up as a servant in Cork, Ireland. The story could well have taken place in Ireland altogether, but as a teacher with almost absolute power - &;-) - it is my prerogative to give students this further constraint, partly to fit in with resources at hand (photos, experience from our study trip to Witney, Oxfordshire), and with our already established storyline town of Whitfield 

• The main character in your story is to be Anne Bonny´s mother, whom I have simply taken the liberty to christen Mary Boyne. Her mother´s name is Cecilia, a fact given by the students at Saltdal (and it´s up to you to find a good surname for her). Mary Boyne must have been born around 1682 and her mother around 1664. Given the framework of our story, this timeline and useful links will be of some help to you in your work.

In the course of your story the locket or medallion with Virgin Mary on it will have to be passed on from mother Cecilia to her daughter Mary.

• Cues for the next school: Børstad ungdomsskole, Hamar. Check their ASP web page – and suggest a cue to be put into the casket when we send it on to them.

• You also have to invent a title for your story!

In fact, Greenwood school in our own Whitfield storyline may serve as a framing story for our instalment of the ASP story about Cecilia´s ghost. 

In order to make our storyline fit in with the ASP storyline, it would be great if you could make your schoolchild find something to put him or her onto the track of the story about our women of the late 17th century: a letter?  a painting with the medalion around someone´s neck?  a mention in a book?  another Catholic symbol?  another object altogether - it´s all up to you, really!