I received a comment about assignment ideas on Storybird in relation to my post on using Storybird in the classroom. Thanks Terese for making me think! I have been brainstorming all day on my “backburner” and decided to compose a list of ideas. Please comment if you have other ideas! We all can benefit from sharing! 🙂
•Limit to 3 pictures to write a story beginning, middle and end to. This may help some students who can get lost in the selection process of the art.
•Have students select one picture and then write sentences utilizing as many details as possible from the picture.
•Assign different steps of the writing process. For example, just a story starter assignment.
•Relate the assignment to word study where students have to use as many s blends or _ay words as possible in their story.
•Related the assignment to word study lessons where students have to use synonyms, antonyms, homophones, compound words, contractions, alliteration, personification, etc.
•Challenge them to make a rhyming story.
•Have them put themselves into the story as a character in the story, interacting with the characters in the art they chose.
•Dig into your content standards for science and social studies and assign a theme to write about. For example, have the characters in the art share what you learned about animals, life in different cultures, etc.
•Just like the above idea, although this one may be trickier, look into your math standards or topics and assign writing a book about how to solve a problem or simply use a picture to write a number story/word problem.
•Assign specific artists that have enough pieces to create an ABC book. Make this general or an ABC book based on a theme to show things they learned during another unit of study.
•Assign a specific artist to use for their stories. It would be great to see so many different ideas come from the same picture!
•Utilize the collaboration feature of Storybird to pair each child with a buddy to create a story together. Think buddy classrooms within a school or your own class. Don’t limit yourself to just your school building. Reach out to collaborate across your district, town, state, country….you get the idea! 🙂
•Assign different types of writings: poetry, dialogue, plays, friendly letters (or characters corresponding to each other), science fiction, etc.
Remember you can create more than one “class” on Storybird, so you can customize your assignments to fit different levels and styles of learning.
Happy writing and assignment creating to all of you! Please comment and share an idea you have or a specific way you have used Storybird. Thanks!
This is exactly what I was looking for. May I have your permission to copy and paste it onto my wiki for the teachers I work with.
Of course! I just ask that you give me credit and post a link to my blog. I hope it helps spark creative ideas! 🙂
Thanks. I”m not sure what your name is. How would you like for me to give you credit?
@MsSpenceB and a link to http://www.caffeinatedteaching.wordpress.com – thanks!
Thank you for being so professionaly generous! As a new teacher, I struggle with ideas, and this is exactly what I need to help get me started! 🙂
You are welcome! I’m glad to help. Good luck to you!
[…] you need ideas to start writing yourself? Here, check out these examples of story […]
Hi. I’m thinking of adopting Storybird in my ESL adult class. I think it would work well as a tool to practice the vocabulary and grammar we are working on while being creative at the same time.