Can my free trial be upgraded to a membership? What are the costs of the memberships?
Yes. Any free trial can be upgraded to a membership at any point. The prices range from $4.99 a month for an individual yearly plan to $8.99 for an individual monthly plan. For school plans, a 50% off discount is applied for a schools with 100-200 members yearly. A district plan is also available to be customizable and to be used with 200 or more teachers and students. *Please note: that you only have a 7 DAY FREE TRIAL. After that, in order to use the website, you will need to upgrade to a membership.*
What can students do while on the platform?
Students have the option to complete challenges assigned to them, read stories created by fellow writers, and/or create a story of their own.
Which formats are suitable for students of preschool and kindergarten age? I want students to be challenged but I also do not want to overwhelm them!
There are five different story formats that students can learn and write from: longform stories, picture books, poetry, comics, and flash action stories. The most appropriate forms of writing for the younger students is picture books and comics. These are the types of books that are used most often with students from ages 3 to 6. Poetry might be explored, but more as a reference to show students that stories can rhyme and they can create a story content with the teacher instead of individually. For the preschool students, there are also songs available on the website that the students can listen to and answer questions to test their knowledge on rhyming, story, sequence.
Are some of the material being used by artists suitable for my students?
The short answer is no. Some pictures/artwork seems to be too dark or may seem to be too graphic for the students that you are working with. For the preschool to kindergarten students, I would review some of the artwork first before letting the students explore the material. For the older grades, many of the artwork is appropriate since they might tie into the type of work that the students are trying to achieve.
Should I assign challenges to students to build upon their writing skills?
Absolutely! These challenges are created to develop the students writing skills as they progress through school. The challenges are easy to assign and will introduce students into the world of writing and what they can look forward to as their school years progress. For the younger age, that is what I would recommend to use with the curriculums. I would not introduce story writing to the students until the end of the year so that they students can show their progression on writing and create a story of their Kindergarten year to keep as memory.