INVITATION

How can students learn to understand stories? How can they learn to create coherent stories that are properly sequenced in time? How can young students learn to find meaning and structure in the stories that they hear, read, and write using educational software?

TASKS

Students brainstorm attributes that can be used to describe themselves. They choose among those attributes in art projects and frame stories. They are introduced to a simple way of sequencing stories temporally and asked to apply it to their life. Finally, they work on the computer to create a multimedia slideshow of their life.

TOOLS

Computers.

Reader Rabbit's Reading Ages 6-9; SuperPrint Deluxe, Kid Works Deluxe or Writing Blaster.

AppleWorks (optional); Phonics Alive! (optional); Kid Pix Studio Deluxe (optional).

Digital camera (optional); scanner (optional).

iMovie (optional).

INTERACTIONS

The teacher works with students in a large group to introduce and brainstorm word banks that will be used in the students' personalized frame sentences. Students then break into smaller groups (of four to six) working with the teacher, aide, parent volunteer, or cross-age tutor to collaborate and develop their multimedia slideshow. Further adult assistance may be needed to help students search through software clip art that represents the ideas and actions for the eight-frame activity.

STANDARDS

To identify the curriculum standards for your state that correlate to this student project, select the state in the popup menu below and then click the Go button.

SITUATIONS

Students work in the classroom or in other locations with computers for all phases of the project. Phase 1 and the beginning portion of Phase 2 can each be completed in one activity session. For the latter part of Phase 2, if the teacher has access to a digital camera, allow additional activity sessions for students to use this equipment to take their pictures and download them into their SuperPrint Deluxe page.

Alternative option:

The activity in Phase 3 may need to be repeated over a period of one week until students feel comfortable with the process. In Phase 4, the teacher models how to use the Kid Pix Studio Deluxe slideshow feature with small groups (of 4 to 6 students) so they can create their own multimedia slideshow. Allow several activity sessions for students to complete the slideshow and present it to classmates.

ASSESSMENT

Teachers can assess the student's understanding and implementation of the concepts and skills by asking the following questions:

1. Did the student complete one of the projects?

2. Did the student complete two of the projects?

3. Did the student complete all of the projects?

4. Did the student complete all of the work, and was he/she able to read it back to the teacher?

Students create individual autobiographical multimedia storybooks or slideshows. They first develop a bank of words and attributes to use in a frame story about themselves. They learn how to apply a simple sequencing device to stories from trade books and then use it to develop autobiographical material. They use these autobiographical materials to create multimedia storybooks or slideshows about themselves.

Phase 1: Celebration of self

Introduce this lesson by brainstorming a word bank with the students. "What can you be? I can be _____." Use this sort of verbal frame sentence to elicit attributes, adjectives, and nouns. The students should respond with sentences such as, "I am nice. I can be funny. I can be proud." Write the target word as the students say it. Small phonics lessons are appropriate as they arise. (If some students need additional reinforcement, have them work through the Phonics Alive! modules.) "What do you hear at the start of 'hungry'?" comes naturally as you are writing the word. If you have a pocket chart, put the words on individual cards so that you can easily compare and categorize them when the brainstorming is over.

You can vary the pattern and the questions while building your word bank: "What are you? I am a boy. I am strong."

Ask each student to trace around both hands. (They might have difficulty tracing their dominant hand with their non-dominant hand. If so, suggest that they have a partner trace it.) On the fingers and thumb of one hand, students should write five things they can do: ride a bike, read a book, and so on. (You might review the words in the word banks to give them ideas. You don't want to limit their thoughts, but it can help when they are having trouble.) On the fingers and thumb of the other hand, students should write five attributes that describe them: funny, serious, hard-working. Give students who want to share a chance to show their hands to the group or class.

Phase 2: An important story

Read Margaret Wise Brown's The Important Book or a similar word-association pattern book. This book illustrates the pattern you are introducing to the students and teaches them how to write a good paragraph.

Give students a copy of the following frame to complete and tell them that you are going to use it to make a class book.

The important thing about ____ is ____________.

He/She has a ______________.

He/She likes to _____________.

And his/her family says _________.

But the important thing about ____ is ______________.

(If students are concerned about the "family says" section, assign it as homework so they can talk to their family about it.)

Set up the frame in SuperPrint Deluxe and create one page for each student. If you have school pictures or a digital camera, show students how to add photos to the top of the page. Otherwise, print the pages and let students do self-portraits on them.

Phase 3: An "eight-frame"

Finding the salient events and putting them into chronological order is an important skill in reading and understanding stories. Read a familiar story to the class or select a story from Reader Rabbit's Reading Ages 6-9 to model sequence stories.

Then give students a blank sheet of paper and ask them to fold it in half and crease it. Ask them to fold it in half again and crease it two more times. If they have done it properly (and this takes some practice) they should have eight rectangles. Ask students to number the rectangles from 1 to 8. This is called an "eight-frame."

Now challenge the students to think of the eight most important things that happened in the story. They should draw the event that happened first in box 1. The second event should go in box 2, and so on. Some students with good temporal sense will do this easily. Some will struggle. Repeat the exercise a couple of times over a week or so until students are comfortable with the process.

Ask the students to make a personal eight-frame. Tell them that they need to fill it in with the eight most important things that have happened in their life in order from 1 to 8. Let them take the eight-frame home to work with their families on it.

Phase 4: An autobiographical slideshow

Call small groups to the computer to show them how to transform their eight-frames into a Kid Works Deluxe or Writing Blaster multimedia storybook or Kid Pix Studio Deluxe slideshow.

(If you are willing to share your own life, demonstrate the process by creating your own personal slideshow. It will help the students envision the final product.)

Each student creates one picture that represents each frame. Because drawing eight pictures may be time-consuming, consider introducing them to clip art and pre-existing drawings.

In addition to the art, each frame should have a title. (If you have a scanner, you can scan the drawings students made when planning their eight-frame.)

As small groups finish drawing and gathering their required pictures, call them together to introduce them to the slideshow feature. Show them how to bring their pictures into a slideshow, how to record a narration for each picture. When completed, have students share their presentations with other classrooms and at the school's open house.

PREPARATION

Create an "Important Story" frame in SuperPrint Deluxe.

Make an "Important Story" frame in AppleWorks and duplicate enough for the whole class.

Create a slideshow or storybook of your own life and narrate it.

Create a chart of action words that students can refer to when completing their verbal frame sentences.

Apply the "eight-frame" to other events and stories.

Use the frame sentence from The Important Book in science and social studies. "The important thing about frogs is ___."

Using the SuperPrint Deluxe student pages created in Phase 2, feature students in your "Student of the Week" or "Student of the Day." Post their student page in a special place in the classroom.

Have students use iMovie to create a desktop movie documentary about themselves featuring "A day in the life of ___________"; add a sound track, include pictures of family and friends, and narration.

At the end of the project, invite families to the classroom to see the slideshows and the class book about the students and what is important about them.

BOOKS

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown (Don't get confused by Another Important Book by the same author which uses a different structure and pattern.)

Happy Birthday to You by Dr. Seuss

INTERNET RESOURCES

The Important Book
http://www.mcps.org/linkous/creativity/important/
A school site using The Important Book