We made our first stories of the year this week in my 8th grade (second year) classes. Created the main character on day one, created the story on day two and then did the re-tell/act out today. We will follow-up with a variation on the story tomorrow that they will work with in Textivate as a group challenge, which is something they love and something everyone gets involved in and excited about.
I created a shell of a PowerPoint presentation to use this year for story details: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzNpz6m0Aob4WEEtWW5TQ1hYcTA/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=mspresentation
I used this presentation to put in the details for the character and then had a slide for each location and a slide for each dialogue. For the next story, it will be a student job to fill in the details in the presentation for me and I will clean it up for the re-tell on the following day. Having the outline in front of us on the screen as we moved through the story was great for keeping us on track so that the story stayed simple and didn't get too convoluted. 😂
The actual re-tell was a lot of fun. The students were all plugged in and enjoying the already known story being acted out in front of them. I chose NOT to have an artist on this first story, but will employ one for the next story. I have felt like I haven't quite hit my groove with the 8th graders yet (I'm on fire with the 6th and 7th graders, but the 8th graders need a slightly different pattern and that takes a little while to sort out) and I am trying to patiently feel my way without throwing everything in all at once. No need to do it all at once. There is a whole year to ease my way in and build this year's better mousetrap and anticipation is building about the jobs. Kids are asking when there will be more jobs....that's great!
So, all in all, these were not perfect and that's ok, but there was great comprehensible input and the kids and I had a great time doing it!
Here are links to videos of 2 eighth grade class re-tells:
https://youtu.be/lsfdGLDF_Fg
https://youtu.be/exoF4_P3JOk
I created a shell of a PowerPoint presentation to use this year for story details: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzNpz6m0Aob4WEEtWW5TQ1hYcTA/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=mspresentation
I used this presentation to put in the details for the character and then had a slide for each location and a slide for each dialogue. For the next story, it will be a student job to fill in the details in the presentation for me and I will clean it up for the re-tell on the following day. Having the outline in front of us on the screen as we moved through the story was great for keeping us on track so that the story stayed simple and didn't get too convoluted. 😂
The actual re-tell was a lot of fun. The students were all plugged in and enjoying the already known story being acted out in front of them. I chose NOT to have an artist on this first story, but will employ one for the next story. I have felt like I haven't quite hit my groove with the 8th graders yet (I'm on fire with the 6th and 7th graders, but the 8th graders need a slightly different pattern and that takes a little while to sort out) and I am trying to patiently feel my way without throwing everything in all at once. No need to do it all at once. There is a whole year to ease my way in and build this year's better mousetrap and anticipation is building about the jobs. Kids are asking when there will be more jobs....that's great!
So, all in all, these were not perfect and that's ok, but there was great comprehensible input and the kids and I had a great time doing it!
Here are links to videos of 2 eighth grade class re-tells:
https://youtu.be/lsfdGLDF_Fg
https://youtu.be/exoF4_P3JOk
