Activity 1: Curriculum Expectations: Writing, Media Literacy, Art, Health from the Ontario Curriculum Guide
Writing:
Media Literacy:
Art:
Health:
Time: 4-5 50 minute class periods
Learning Goal: To have students create a digital story based on an “island” (like the islands Riley has in her memory: goofball island, hockey island, friend island, family island and happy fun-time island) that applies to their personal history and memories.
Student Task
List your best memories. Include things like your best friends, activities, family traditions etc that are part of what make you, you.
Use the list you created above to begin brainstorming people and activities associated with these memories.
Choose the group of similar memories (i.e. hockey island) you would most like to share with the class.
Give this group of memories an interesting Island name, be creative in naming your island.
Now that you have created the island, list ideas, events and people that would live on this island.
Create a mind map of the things you will include in your digital story about your island.
Using a highlighter: highlight memories you will start with in yellow, memories in the middle of your story in blue and memories at the end of your memories in green.
Choose what ever method is best for you to plan out your story (storyboard, rough draft, computer mind map, cue cards).
Use the digital storytelling app we learned about (Storybird) to create your digital story.
Include with your digital story a personal reflection on why you created this particular island, the memories associated with it. Feel free (but not obligated to ) share any not so great emotions that accompany this island, for example part of Riley’s hockey memories was losing the big game.
Teacher’s Notes
Ensure students have all received a lesson on using Storybird, can access their account, and understand how to save their story under their file. Students will need access to paper, coloured highlighters and a computer or chromebook to access the Storybird site.
Students will begin by brainstorming memories and events that are important to them. Students will create an island of their choosing to create a digital story about. Remind students to be creative in the creation of the island and its name.
Once the theme of their island is chosen students will use a mind map to gather their ideas and memories.They will then highlight their memories in order of their appearance in the story. (see student list above for colour code)
Students will then create an outline of their story using any format they wish; including storyboards, outlines, cue cards etc). Students should be able to successfully answer these questions before moving on to their Digital Story: -Does the outline effectively demonstrate what will take place in your Digital Story? -Does the outline include emotions that accompany the memories you are sharing on your island? -Does the outline have a beginning, middle and end?
Students will submit with their digital story (in any format they choose, written, oral , video) a personal reflection on why they chose to create this island and the memories that they included. Students will be reminded to include any “negative” thoughts they may have encountered (if they are comfortable sharing) the example of Riley’s hockey memories including losing the big game.
Take this link to preview Storybird in order to introduce it to the students. Remember to create a class in storybird.Storybird
Extension: Create a poetry piece based on the island students created using Storybird/Lark. Click this link to go to the lark site:Lark