Showing posts with label digital storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital storytelling. Show all posts

Monday, June 20, 2011

Max's Words by Kate Banks

Genre - Fiction

Rating - 5/5

Age group recommendation - K-3

The Scoop -
Brothers Karl and Benjamin collect coins and stamps, but when Max shows what he can do with the words he collects, his brothers join the fun!

The Story -
It must be the writer in me that loves this book.  The book presents writing in its simplest form - putting one word after another.  I think this book could assuage fears many students have about writing.  If they look at writing as a smaller task like putting one word after another rather than completing several paragraphs it could be a lot easier for students to tackle.

Educational applications  


Georgia Performance Standards 
ELA3R2 The student acquires and uses grade-level words to communicate effectively. 
ELA3C1 The student demonstrates understanding and control of the rules of the English language, realizing that usage involves the appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both written and spoken formats. 
  
Any set of vocabulary words could be used for any grade with this book.  For third grade, the teacher and media specialist work collaboratively to introduce the book and the concept of word placement.  A variety of vocabulary and other words are written on index cards.  Each student is given seven cards with a mixture of types of words.  Students may trade cards, but must be sure to have a mixture of words that will form a correct sentence.  Students present their sentences to the class and explain what part of speech each word is.  Students could also be put in groups to create several related sentences. 

Max's Words by Kate Banks Illustrated by Boris Kulikov
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2006
Copy from Atlanta Fulton County Library

Monday, June 13, 2011

We Tell Stories

We Tell Stories is a website that features digital fiction from Penguin.  Each of the six stories is formatted in an innovative way.

"The 21 Steps" follows a character through a journey on Google Maps and includes points of interest along the way.

"Slice" follows Lisa through a family move to London via her personal blog posts and Tweets as well as her parents' blog and Tweets.

Other formats for the stories include choose your own adventure, writing in real time, and telling a non-fiction story through graphic means. Any of these digital stories would make a great template for a class project.  English, history, geography, science...the options are unlimited!

"The 21 Steps" is especially adaptable to many different subject areas.  Using Google Maps or any other mapping software, students can create a digital tour of their city, state, or the country highlighting historical sites, geographical places of interest, or literary sites.  Science classes could use this idea to map butterfly or bird migration, map constellations with Google Sky

We Tell Stories was awarded Best in Show at the South by Southwest Web Awards in 2008 (BBC article).