Wheels of Fiction

When teaching the Elements of Fiction, I've usually started by discussing familiar stories with students and then randomly placing a jot note in a chart something like this (for Cinderella).

SETTING		CHARACTER	PROBLEM		SOLUTION
When	Where	Who	What	Why	How
Sometime	Somewhere	Somebody	Wanted	But	So	Then
Long Ago					Her fairy godmother came
			To go to the ball
	In a faraway kingdom					She went to the ball, met the prince, got married and lived happily ever after
				Her evil stepmother would not let her
		Cinderella

A simple plot summary for Cinderella (using the SSSWBST formula) would be:

Long ago, in a faraway kingdom, Cinderella wanted to go to the ball BUT her evil stepmother wouldn't let her. SO, her fairy godmother appeared and helped her. THEN she went to the ball, met and married the prince, and lived happily ever after.

We would then complete the chart with elements from other shared stories, use a die to randomly select 1 item for each category and then write a new 'fractured' story summary. This would be followed-up with either a modeled or shared writing session.

I wanted to move away from the chart and die format and make something that we could spin. For a minute I thought about asking my husband to help me make me a big and real wheel - like the one on Wheel of Fortune, but, as much fun as that would be, where would I keep it? Then, I was using a timer app and I thought that something like this could be modified to fit my needs.

But I don't have a clue about how to develop my own app....yet, but I want to learn.

I couldn't find an online tool that was exactly what I wanted, so I spent some time on PowerPoint creating Wheels of Fiction. Maybe I'm impressed due to the "IKEA Effect", but I made something that actually SPINS! (and I think my grade 2's will like the spinning action and sound effects).

I'll use this with my grade 2's, but if I was still teaching middle school I would have students create their own spinners (while I was creating this, I realized how much math (probability, circumference, degrees in a circle, etc.), ethics/character ed (what might look random is NOT), and language was involved.

In any grade, this will help students articulate a clear and simple plot summary, generate story ideas (for those who need some help), and set the scene for writing collaboratively or independently.

PS - Best viewed as a PowerPoint slide show. The SPIN animation doesn't work on an iPad when you use SlideShark . Spin works in Office365 PowerPoint Web App, although there is still no sound.

I've filled in all of the slides so that you can get the idea of how it works, but the beauty in this PPT is that you can customize it to suit your needs. I would love to hear how you might use the Wheels of Fiction :)

Creating Galimotos

 

This week in our grade 2 class, we read Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams. I posted the Reading Rainbow episode on our class web page so that parents could watch it with their child.

 

The class came up with a definition for galimoto - a toy vehicle made of wire. I explained to the class that I had purchased 600 pipe cleaners so that everyone could make their own galimoto, but we had to figure out how many pipe cleaners each student should receive. This could be a difficult question for grade 2 students, but we've been working on problem solving and students were up for the challenge. Many students drew pictures to solve the problem, others counted by 20s since there are 20 students in the class, and a few students were able to solve the problem with division.

 

When we reflected on the book and the activities, most students agreed that building their galimoto was the best part. They said it was difficult - but fun. Getting pipe cleaners to take the shape of a vehicle required a lot of creative problem solving. I'm so proud of how they worked together to solve problems and the best part was that they didn't give up.

 

 

After building their galimoto, students took a photograph of their work and then used the Skitch app to label their photo.

 

 

 

Next week, we will be comparing our galimotos to a variety of toy vehicles in our work on Movement in Science. We will also be writing about our favourite toys and talking about how our toys are different than the toys that Kondi plays with.