Roll-A-Story

MsJordanReads (ND). Roll-A-Story [Online Resource].
Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/206TZAA

This unit is based on the activity I found on Classroom Freebies Too which led me to Teachers Pay Teachers. The activity is called 'Roll-A-Story' and it's an excellent starting point to create a series of lessons that will help students develop their writing skills.

Depending on how the activity is framed it can be useful for many grade levels. The resource itself is recommended for grade 1-4, but in this post I'm going to be going over a way it can be used in grade 7, or late grade 6.

To the right is the actual Roll-a-Story handout; students roll a dice 3 times in order to get a random character, setting, and problem. This puts advanced students in a position where they must think creatively in order to combine those three elements logically. My suggestion, is to use this resource as a starting point to help students come up with an idea before spending at least a couple weeks developing the story. I would suggest having students use their roll-a-story as the 'action' for each lesson while they're working on the piece (i.e. teacher does a lesson on formatting or proofreading and students apply that lesson to their stories). By doing this, the teacher can assess the 2nd and 3rd overall expectations for writing in an ongoing way.

I created a hand-out based on the one pictured above that incorporates social justice issues and situations that students would have discussed in class, and it addresses more pertinent issues. The handout includes a new Roll-A-Story sheet, a story organization/outline sheet, as well as written instructions for the activity, as follows:

Activity Instructions:

1. Roll your dice to get the character, setting, and problem you’ll be using for your story (make sure you make a note of which character, setting, and problem you roll on).
2. Complete the placemat organization chart to brainstorm your story with your elbow partners. Remember that you’re trying to come up with potential solutions to your character’s problem. Think about the books we’ve been reading as a class and how those characters faced their challenges - how could these characters emulate the characters from our books?  
3. Once you’ve completed the brainstorm with your elbow partners, then summarize the ideas in the story organization chart.

The placemat organization sheet is a way for students to brainstorm ideas with classmates. This will allow students the opportunity to get multiple ideas and create a well developed and meaningful story.

MacCuish (2015). Adapted from: http://bit.ly/1NFhzO9

Curriculum Connections

The 2nd overall writing expectation for grade 7 is to draft and revise their writing, using a variety of informational, literary, and graphic forms and stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose and audience, and the 3rd overall expectation for grade 7 is to use editing, proofreading, and publishing skills and strategies, and knowledge of language conventions, to correct errors, refine expression, and present their work effectively. And the specific expectations addressed in a given lesson would vary depending on which writing element the teacher introduces and students develop in their story.

This stage would continue until students complete a creative writing piece they're proud of, at which point the teacher can have students create a 'cover' for their story in order to use other forms of creativity as well as synthesis the ideas in their story into cover art (specific expectation 3.8 for writing, page 132). In addition, as a wrap up students can read aloud their stories in small groups in order to gain feedback.

Assuming the students enjoyed this activity and found it helpful for their writing development, then I would suggest repeating the activity using a different roll-a-story sheet (or have students create one as a class, or create one relevant to a different topic they are learning about like Canadian history or the Middle Ages). This would give students two pieces of writing that were written under similar conditions but at different times, and therefore they would be able to gauge their maturation as a writer. If this repeat of the activity is done then it starts to tap into the 4th overall expectation for writing to have students reflect on and identify their strengths as writers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process, and specifically helping them to create a portfolio of work they believe represents their growth as a writer (4.3, page 132).

As a side note: roll-a-story should be explicitly explained as a strategy that students can repeat if ever they're having trouble coming up with an idea for a story. Although it can be fun, it also serves a unique purpose of helping students finalize ideas they may be debating over, if they're the ones who create the game though. When the teacher creates the sheet it's a form of scaffolding until students feel more comfortable with their writing.

In summary, I found this roll-a-story activity was an excellent resource to trigger a lot of ideas about how to teach writing in a meaningful way. I hope my sharing of ideas helped you come up with a creative way to teach writing as well!