Using Storyjumper

 Here is my story created on Storyjumper.

In the previous activity, I realised that I rarely use the process approach to writing in my English classroom and so I thought I would try to come up with a sequence following this approach while also incorporating the tool Storyjumper. I had a look at both Pixton and Storyjumper before getting started and I found the scenes and props were much more limited on Pixton leading me to opt for the latter.  

Given that we are towards the end of the first term, realistically I have not got time to carry out the sequence explained below with any of my groups, therefore I will have to explain it from a hypothetical point of view. 

The sequence would be carried out during the Halloween period with a group of students in their 3rd year of CSE, and the story in Storyjumper would be the final product. While there would be cooperative activities in groups of four leading up to the final product, the final product in Storyjumper would be an individual task, evaluated using a rubric. The reason I have chosen to make this an individual task is because it cannot be edited on two computers/tablets at the same time like a Google Doc or an infographic in Canva, meaning that only one student can work at a given time.

I would start with the story ‘It was a cold, dark night…’, a text I found many years ago in the New English File series by Oxford. This story is divided into paragraphs with a question for students to discuss at the end of each paragraph. The idea is that students predict what is going to happen in the story bit by bit. It’s an excellent way for students to share ideas and to get them thinking creatively. The story has been uploaded to Slideshare and so I would use this and have volunteers read each paragraph out loud, stopping after each one to let the groups express their ideas before sharing some of them to the rest of the group until we come to the end of the text. Students would then think of how the story would continue and write a first draft with their group. This would be peer corrected by the other groups in the class. Before writing a second draft, the students (with the help of the teacher) would comment on and help others with mistakes they are not sure how to correct or common mistakes they have seen amongst their peers’ writing. 

I would use this opportunity to draw their attention to the grammatical structures used throughout the story (past simple and past continuous). In general I dislike standing at the front of the class and explaining grammar because the kids seem to find it boring and often they switch off half way through the explanation. Therefore, I’d have them deduce how we use these structures through their use in the story and also through their own online investigation, checking their ideas match those of the rest of their group. 

Though one of my objectives would be related to accuracy (the use of the past simple/continuous), this sequence would be an opportunity to focus on fluency. Students are given few opportunities to talk freely without being corrected, and so this would be one of my main objectives here, to have them try to communicate their ideas as best they can without worrying so much about how accurate their language is. The use of Storyjumper would hopefully encourage students to want to write as it is part of the book-creating process. I have students that dislike writing or find it difficult so having images to support and express their ideas would hopefully be encouraging. We could also share their final stories on Twitter giving them another reason to make an effort and check over their work before handing it in. I really like using Padlet for the kids to share and access their classmate’s work, so this could also be done as a way for the class to access and read their peers’ work. On Padlet it is possible to leave comments, likes and up-vote so it could also be a great way to peer-evaluate the final products. 

As I haven’t carried this sequence out, I’m unable to comment on areas of improvement, however I can imagine some difficulties we would encounter. First of all, there may be students who have forgotten their tablets, or that have no battery. While they can do part of the writing on paper, it may cause a delay to the final product. Another issue might be that students spend too much time on the aesthetics of the book and too little on the use of the language. I have found this often happens when creating presentations, infographics, posters and so on.

In terms of strengths, I think the students would enjoy creating the book and sharing it with their classmates and on social media. They don’t always have many opportunities to be creative in English class so this is a lovely way of allowing them to do this.

A way of improving the sequence would be to involve other subjects. Both Spanish Language and the third language at the school could be easily integrated here. Students could write part of their story in Spanish, a part in English and a small paragraph in the third language.