Storytailor

Carla Casino, Gina Sala and Marta Salvatella

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

In this learning situation, students work together to create, edit, and share their own digital stories using Storytailor, while learning new vocabulary with the help of the Cambridge Dictionary and interactive tools such as Mentimeter. Through four sessions students develop both their creativity and language skills.

CONTEXTUALIZATION:

• Target Age: 6th graders (11-12 years old)

• Target Language Level (based on CEFR): A2

• Location (indoors, outdoors, gym, classroom, etc.): Classroom

LESSON AIMS:

Reception: p.56

• OVERALL READING COMPREHENSION: 

  • • Can understand short, simple texts containing the highest frequency vocabulary, including a proportion of shared international vocabulary items.

• READING AS A LEISURE ACTIVITY: 

  • • Can understand enough to read short, simple stories and comic strips involving familiar, concrete situations written in high frequency everyday language.

• READING INSTRUCTIONS: 

  • • Can understand short written instructions illustrated step by step (e.g. for installing new technology).

• IDENTIFYING CUES AND INFERRING (SPOKEN & WRITTEN): 

  • • Can use an idea of the overall meaning of short texts and utterances on everyday topics of a concrete type to derive the probable meaning of unknown words from the context.

Production: p. 70

• CREATIVE WRITING: 

  • • Can write an introduction to a story or continue a story, provided he/she can consult a dictionary and references (e.g. tables of verb tenses in a course book).

• SPOKEN PRODUCTION: 

  • • Can explain what he/she likes or dislikes about something.

    • Can present his/her opinion in simple terms, provided listeners are patient.

Interaction: p. 83

• INFORMAL DISCUSSION (WITH FRIENDS):

  • • Can exchange opinions and compare things and people using simple language.

    • Can agree and disagree with others.

Mediation: p. 105

• EXPRESSING A PERSONAL RESPONSE TO CREATIVE TEXTS (INCLUDING LITERATURE): 

  • • Can say whether he/she liked a work or not and explain why in simple language.

• ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM OF CREATIVE TEXTS (INCLUDING LITERATURE): 

  • • Can identify and briefly describe, in basic formulaic language, the key themes and characters in short, simple narratives involving familiar situations that are written in high frequency everyday language. 

• FACILITATING COLLABORATIVE INTERACTION WITH PEERS: 

  • • Can collaborate in simple, shared tasks, provided that other participants speak slowly and that one or more of them help him/her to contribute and to express his/her suggestions.

Communicative Language Competences (Linguistics, Sociolinguistic, Pragmatic): p. 132

• LINGUISTICS: 

  • • General linguistics range: Has a repertoire of basic language, which enables him/her to deal with everyday situations with predictable content, though he/she will generally have to compromise the message and search for words.

• PRAGMATIC: 

  • • Coherence and cohesion: Can use the most frequently occurring connectors to link simple sentences in order to tell a story or describe something as a simple list of points.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES (SWBATs):

• Students will be able to identify and select characters, settings and a random word for a story by brainstorming and posting ideas on Mentimeter, in order to develop their creative skills. 

• Students will be able to create a coherent digital story in Storytailor, using the assigned characters, setting and a random word, in order to practice digital storytelling and share their imagination through an engaging online platform.

• Students will be able to rewrite their story’s last paragraph by integrating learned vocabulary from the original story, in order to improve their writing and vocabulary skills. 

• Students will be able to analyse their peers’ stories on the class website, considering the new vocabulary in order to give meaningful feedback. 

PREPARATION:

• The student’s computers must have access to the school WiFi to be able to open the StoryTailor website (10 minutes before the class starts)

• The teacher must have an account created in the website StoryTailor and it should be logged in on each computer. Additionally, the language from the website should be switched to English. (30 minutes before the class starts.

• The teacher must prepare the instructions worksheet of the website. It must be printed for them to use and scaffold if needed. (1 day before as the teacher has to print it)

MATERIALS:

• Tablets/computers for each group.

• Websites: 

  • • Storytailor

    • Online Cambridge Dictionary

    • Mentimeter

    • Wordwall (Spin the wheel): It would be created with the students’ names or groups. 

    • For the creation of the instruction worksheet, the teacher can use Canva, as the example below.

• Instruction Worksheet.

• Draft papers and pen/pencil to take notes. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITIES:

Pre-task (1 hour)

The teacher introduces Storytailor and briefly demonstrates how it works. Students recall previous vocabulary and structures related to story writing (e.g., narrative tenses, connectors, and descriptive adjectives). In groups, students discuss and decide on a character, a setting and one random word they would like another group to include in their story, posting their ideas on Mentimeter (one for each category). Then, the teacher provides each group with a vocabulary list related to the current unit. Finally, the teacher selects one word from Mentimeter and uses an online wheel to randomly assign it to each group. By the end of the session, every group has a character, a setting and a random word to use in their story.

Main task (2 hours)

In groups, students use Storytailor to generate a short story based on their chosen characters, setting, and assigned random word. The teacher has previously given each group an instruction worksheet with the steps to follow to use Storytailor. When the story is created, they read it together, discuss new vocabulary, and use the Cambridge Dictionary to find meanings to the words. In groups, they rewrite the ending of their story (last paragraph) directly in the app or on a shared document. During this time, the teacher goes around the classroom and helps if support is needed.

The expected result is a short AI-generated story with a new student-written ending and a short vocabulary list of new words.

Post-task (1 hour)

Groups share their modified stories, posting them on the shared website. Peers give brief oral feedback focusing on creativity and correct use of new vocabulary. The teacher wraps up by highlighting good language examples and checking if students have met the communicative objective (creating and modifying a story using English collaboratively).

SCAFFOLDING:

In order to help students, we have create a printed checklist that complements the teacher's explanations.

Skateboard Sam’s City Park Showdown

One wild day in the city park, a skateboarding hero rolls, paints, and even dances to save the day from a villain’s not-so-sneaky camera prank!

Sam zipped through the city park on a bright blue skateboard, zigzagging around benches and tossing high fives at waving squirrels. All Sam wanted was a peaceful afternoon of pure skating delight. But suddenly—flash!—a camera popped up from behind a bush. Out jumped Gertie Grumble, the city’s grumpiest prankster, clutching her horrible camera. “Say cheese!” Gertie cackled, hoping to catch Sam in a silly stumble for her collection of embarrassing photos. Sam’s helmet visor gleamed with determination (and maybe a little nervous sweat). "Not today, Gertie!" Sam shouted, swerving away just as Gertie snapped a blurry photo.

Gertie chased Sam, her camera going CLICK-SNAP! The skateboard zoomed over a puddle with a fantastically loud SPLASH. “You can’t skate forever!” Gertie called. But Sam had tricks up their sleeve. First, they spun a wild dance right on the board—spinning, twirling, even doing the robot! Gertie gasped and stumbled into a pile of paint cans left for a mural project. Paint splattered! Blue! Green! SPLORK! Gertie looked like a walking rainbow. Sam giggled and did a ‘victory wiggle,’ buying time to think. Out of nowhere, Sam dove toward the little park pond, hopping off the board and diving in with a giant KA-POOSH!

Sam swam like a superhero, grabbing a floating storybook from near the lily pads. With Gertie still clomping after, Sam popped up and began to read aloud, doing silly voices for each character in the tale. The ducks paddled closer, Gertie forgot her prank, and all around the pond, everyone laughed at Sam’s hilarious acting. But suddenly, Gertie remembered her mission. She stomped back, camera ready. “No more fun! Only funny photos!” she declared. Sam thought quickly and winked at the nearest duck.

Leaping up in a huge spray of water, Sam landed perfectly back on the board. With one smooth move, they whizzed past Gertie so fast her camera spun around and took the goofiest photo of Gertie herself—covered in paint, looking utterly silly. The crowd cheered. Even Gertie had to laugh when she saw her new photo! Breathless and proud, Sam grinned and helped Gertie up, reminding everyone that city park adventures should always end in laughter (and maybe a little dancing). SKRT-TWIRL-BOOM! Sam did one last wild move, promising more fun was just around the bend.