Cameras, PowerPoint and Creative Writing Lesson
Take Pictures of Back Yard or Basement to Inspire Children's Stories
Jul 28, 2009
In this lesson, middle school students will write a children's story that will become a PowerPoint that they share with their class and/or younger children at an elementary school. This lesson integrates technology and writing. Students will need to have access to a digital camera, computer, and PowerPoint software. This assignment can be completed individually or in pairs.
Students Take Digital Photo
To help students to develop a setting, mood or even characters, ask them to use a digital camera and to take photos of interesting things around their homes. This does not necessarily mean that they will take photos of family members. Ask them to think about the type of story they want to write before they begin taking pictures.
If students know the type of story they want to write, this will give them a direction of what types of pictures they will need to take. If they do not know what type of story they want to write, they need to take many photos and edit them down later.
Photos Inspire Story
If students know they want to write a scary story, they need to think about things that could be scary around their house. For example, the photos included with this article all came from a large flower garden next to a house. These photos could be used to inspire a scary story. There are photos of a spider web, spider, wasp, mushroom and fly.
Bring in Digital Photos
The photos can be brought in as a jpeg file on any electronic storage device, such as a jump drive or flash drive. These photos can be printed off to help students to write their stories. Then students can upload their pictures to PowerPoint story.
Students Write Story
The students will make an electronic children's book in a PowerPoint format as the end product. They need to develop their ideas using a story board. The pictures the students took should become part of the story. Most stories will probably be between six to twenty slides. Anything beyond twenty slides will probably be too long.
With this in mind, they need a simple story line, likable characters, one conflict to solve and a happy ending. To organize their ideas, they need to make ten boxes on a paper. Within the boxes, they need to write their story. Use the photos to show the setting, set the mood, illustrate action, explain the characters, etc. Student may also choose to use clip art that they have available to add interest to the PowerPoint story.
Make PowerPoint
Once the story board is complete and the digital photos are chosen for the story, they need to make the PowerPoint story. The end product should have a slide that has the title of the story with the student’s name and a picture or clip art. In addition, the students should be mindful of that there is not too much text or too many photos on any one slide.
Assess With a Rubric
The end result can be assessed with a rubric. The criteria for the rubric could be characters and story line, slide development, creativity, and use of photos and/or clip art.
This lesson is a great way to integrate technology in the language arts classroom. Students will enjoy using this technology, and younger student will enjoy having older students share their stories.
Other short story lessons: Use Magazines to Develop Short Story and Develop Short Stories Using Toys
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