Create A Story

by

Constance Barr Corbett

SCOS: Technology Skills 2.5-Participate in the creation of a class multimedia sequential/linear story

Visual Arts-1.10 Illustrate poems, stories and rhymes

Language Arts-4.06 Compose a variety of products (e.g. stories, journal entries, letters, etc.)

 

Materials: The book, Make Way For Ducklings; Computer; Printer and Paper

 

The teacher will introduce this workstation by reading the book, Make Way For Ducklings, to the class.

There will be a brief discussion after the book is read about possible future adventures for the baby ducklings. This discussion will include actions and reactions as possibilities.

Each child will choose a baby duckling (by name) to represent. (There will be duplicates, but that's ok.) The teacher will record the duckling's name by each child's name and post it on a large chart in the computer center.

A story will be started on the computer by the teacher, who has taken on the role of Mother Duck. The teacher will explain the activity to small groups of children at the computer center and demo typing in the first sentence. She will put her name in parenthesis after this sentence to demo that step.

The children will add their adventures to the story by going to the computer center workstation individually and typing one sentence at the end of the previous sentence. The child can only write about the activities of the duckling he represents. If there are duplicate ducklings, the child must continue the storyline that the first contributor begins.(Students will put their names in parenthesis after their contribution.)

The story will continue until all the story's events have been resolved. Pictures will be downloaded to the site and pictures will also be drawn/printed and colored to illustrate the story's events. When the story and pictures are completed, the class will give a title to the story. The teacher will spellcheck each child's contributions with that child. When the story is corrected, copies will be printed. Each child will receive a copy of the story when it is finished. (The parenthesis will be deleted before final printing, but a class byline will be used as author's name on finished story.)

The first sentence put on the site will be: Mother Duck looked at her ducklings and said, "What are they doing now!" (Ms. Corbett)

The computer will be set up to use text reader to enable the students to listen to previously written material on this workstation.

Assessment: The students will be assessed by their contributions to the story. One point each will be given for creativity/imagination, character development, setting, logical sequence of events, and participation, for a total of five points possible. Gold stars will be given to students with five points, silver stars for four points, red stars for three points. Any lower score will result in additional work in the weak areas.