Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Building the Story


Slice of Life is sponsored on Tuesdays by Two Writing Teachers. For the month of March we are posting a slice each day on our blog. Join in! 

I was lucky enough this year to get some sets of Lego Story Visualizers for my reading lab classes. The sets come with a teacher’s manual and software components, but we have mostly just been building and telling stories. Sometimes I have them build a scene from something they are working on in their general reading classes, other times I give them a story starter from the manual, and then there are the days they are allowed to free-build.

When they have free-build days, the things they come up with are amazing. Pieces that are meant to be dogs become horses, handcuffs become bridges, and plain old Lego blocks are transformed into dragons. They are always asked to move from group to group at the end of class and tell each other about what they have built. Some of my more tech-savvy students are using their iPhones and iPads to create live-action stories with iMotion.


Some students can write stories, some can verbalize them, and some need to build them. But no matter what the method of delivery, ever student has a story to tell. We just have to help them find the means to let their stories be told.  

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