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Folding Story Brainstorms

 I have always adored a game of Exquisite Corpse. I am a huge fan of surrealism and think the collaborative aspect of the game is enjoyable while presenting a challenge. When I made my account on FoldingStory, I was delighted! This is something that I think will be very fun for me, in my personal life. I am hoping to use it as a way to get back into creative writing, just for fun and stress release. In terms of secondary education, I think FoldingStory is a tool that can be used to amp up engagement with writing, something that is almost as hard to get secondary students into as reading, and it could establish rigor in a collaborative online environment. 

Unfortunately, with Florida's standards and expectations, there is not a lot of room for creative writing in the standard ELA classroom. Many educators have to find quick and easy ways to incorporate it into their lessons, if at all. More often than not, their hands are bound by the looming state-mandated writing test (FAST) at the end of the school year. The rubric for this test is based on argumentative or explanatory writing, and the materials the students are given are often bone dry. I once had to grade hundreds of essays on ALGAE. I wanted to scoop out my eyeballs and never read an essay again, I can only imagine how the kiddos felt writing them. 

Due to the tough and boring nature of ELA education, I think it is imperative educators find ways to incorporate writing activities that are fun and creative. FoldingStory may just be the way to do this. Below, I have included a number of ways it could be incorporated into daily lessons without disrupting (unfortunately) crucial curriculum:

  • Bellwork: allow students to build a daily story based on a given prompt.
  • Build longer stories through bellwork based on themes. 
  • Allow students to work together to build a response to a writing response- it may not be as interesting of a prompt but the collaborative and tech aspect could promote engagement with the standards. 
  • Offer extra-credit for students who participate in story building on their own and keep a participation log. 
  • School-wide activities could be implemented for Literacy Week. 
  • Summer writing challenges with participation logs. 
Happy Writing!

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