Harris Burdick

One my favorite activities that we did in grad school came from our very first class.

We worked in a group of three and wrote a story together based on a picture.

We each had a different picture from a book called Harris Burdick, that we started to write about.

After 20 minutes we would pass our writing to one of our partners to continue our story.

At the end of 20 minutes we would pass our story to the last person for them to finish it.

Each partner built on the story previously written.

When we were finished we each had a story that we started,

and we were able to get great writing ideas from

our partners.

I did this same activity with my class this year.

They LOVED it!

When they got their stories back, they had the option

to re-create the story however they wanted.

They could take advice from their peers or they can

change the story back to how they wanted.

Story Jumper

I have been looking for a new Web 2.0 writing tool to use with my students.

I typically use Storybird at the beginning of the year for my students to get ideas for writing,

but I wanted a tool that would allow the students to use their own creativity.

I found a tool called Story Jumper that allows my students to start a story from scratch.

They each get their own account that they can use at school and home.

They can even purchase their book and view other classmates stories.

Check it out!

Descriptive Writing

For the last couple weeks our class has been focusing a lot on character development in our reading and writing. Students are able to see character development in their books, but it's been difficult to apply it in their stories.

In an attempt to help them with this, I found something on the Web called Creature Creator. It allows you to create a creature, then asks a lot of different questions about the creature you created. At the end of the questioning it puts everything into a story.

Students are able to see the character development through this activity.

Once they create their creator they will using the Snipping Tool and save it as JPEG to post onto our blog.

They will then use Build Your Wild Self to build their own creature and write their own story about their wild-self.