5 Picture Story

As the Learn21 Specialist at my school for grades 4-8, (Fancy title… What do I do? My role is to partner with teachers by observing their classes and meeting with them in groups or one-on-one to share ideas on how to incorporate 21^st century lessons that may or may not include technology.) I met with one of our amazing English teachers today to develop an idea that she had. Her students are currently reading Watsons Go to Birmingham, and she wanted to connect the theme of family to her students by creating an “Alphabet Autobiography.” Originally, her idea was for each student to create a book with 26 pages, one for each letter of the alphabet. For page “a”, for example, the student would add images that reflect something in their life that starts with the letter “a.” For example, on my page “a” I may add an image of Avery Kate, my rowdy 20 month old daughter, because her name starts with the letter a and when I present, I could tell stories about our relationship. However, the English teacher quickly realized that having 6^th graders create a 26-page book, may end up taking an eternity. Here is where we came around to the “5 Picture Story” idea thanks to Wesley Fryer and CogDogBlog. (Click on both to look at their awesome ideas to use in your classroom.)

So here is what she will be doing with her class:

Students will be assigned one letter of the alphabet. (Depending on class size, some students may have more than one letter to complete the book.) Each student will find 5 images that relate to that particular letter to tell their story. Students will use the Pages app to create their page. Each student will then send their flyer to teacher and she will create an alphabet book with all of the pages.

Presentation: Students will present by showing their flyer (in our case, students will use their iPads and connect to Apple TV). As their flyer is presented, they will verbally explain their 5 picture story.