Lesson Ideas for #Chromebook Classrooms: Simple Story Builder

Note: this lesson idea is an excerpt from my book, The Chromebook Classroom. If you find this lesson helpful, you will enjoy the 40+ lessons from the book! Pick up a copy on Amazon or at chrmbook.com!

Dialog and character interaction is what makes fiction immersive and engaging. Learning how to write engaging dialogue is difficult, but with Google Story Builder, students can practice the writing process in a fun and interactive way. Students can add multiple characters and background music to set the tone for their story.

The purpose of this assignment is to help students practice and experience writing dialogue. It takes a lot of time to come up with characters, a plot, and a setting for a short story. Rather than coming up with these elements on their own, have students use a plot generator to automatically suggest all of the required elements. Not only will this save time, students will find the crazy plot suggestions quite entertaining!

After generating and reviewing their plot, students will use the Google Story Builder tool to write the dialog for a portion of their story. The story builder tool is purposefully restrictive and only allows a maximum of 10 characters, with no more than 10 comments from each one.

After completing the dialog, students can customize their background music, then publish and share the video for others to watch.

CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

Here's an example of a finished story:

Tips and Suggestions

Stories cannot be modified once they are published. Encourage students to plan their story on paper before building and publishing their digital story.

Stories cannot be downloaded. The only way to share a story is to copy the unique link to a published video. Create a shared Google document to collect and share links so that students can watch each other’s creations.

Resources:

• Google Story Builder: http://chrm.tech/28
• Sample story which illustrates the importance of punctuation: http://chrm.tech/29
• Random Plot Generator: http://chrm.tech/25
• Using the Story Generator in the Classroom: http://chrm.tech/27
• Story Planner Template: http://chrm.tech/2b