Submitted by Fiona Beal
One of the most popular posts to date on this blog has been one outlining a number of sites that can be used for starting stories '10 Story Starter sites to get your students writing’. I thought it was time to add to the list. The Internet is full of the most amazing tools to encourage our students to write. To this end I created a Scoop.it containing the posts I find as I do research http://www.scoop.it/t/reading-and-writing-in-primary-school
Let’s face it, as teachers we need and LOVE ideas that can help us to get more from our students and engage them to the full.
1. Scholastic Story Starters
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/storystarters/storystarter1.htm
This is for K-6th grade. Here you can choose a theme fir starting a piece of writing in one of these categories – Adventure, Sci_fi, Scrambler or Fantasy. The teeacher is given help to use the application. To me this looks like a good scaffolding application for writing. .
2. Flickr storm
http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/
Flickr is a treasure trove for a teacher. It is a collection of free photos. Flickr Storm would be a way to collect pictures and postcards on a topic of interest, save them to a tray and then write a story using them as illustrations. For example, I typed in the word ‘princess’ and was given a selection. Each one I then click on would be enlarged into the tray on the right hand side of the page.
3. 17 larger than life objects
http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/07/01/17-larger-than-life-giant-objects/
This blog has a great number of photos with some objectos that are unusually large. This would certainly inspire a story!
4. 5 card Flickr
http://5card.cogdogblog.com/play.php?suit=5card
You start off by picking one of their images to add to your story. You continue in thisein till you have collected five images that you like. Then you write your story. There are a number of examples of stories previously written to look at with their selected images.
5. Wonder of the day blog
http://wonderopolis.org/
This is a site with pictures videos and words about something wondrous. The students could take a look around till they feel inspired to write.
6. 100 best first lines from novels
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2wlUXW/www.pantagraph.com/news/article_a125216a-649f-5414-88b5-76a688ea3b6a.html
In this site the students could read the first lines until an idea strikes them.
7. The Newspaper Clipping Generator
http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp
Your students could use this newspaper generator to generate a story from a list of headlines that you have collected. They write in the headline of choice and then start their report.
8. Story Starters from the Young Writer's Workshop
http://www.meddybemps.com/9.700.html
This site is the ‘Young Writers workshop’ Ther e rae plenty of ideas for younger students on this site. When you make a topic choice it takes you a template with a starting line and this can be printed.
Work through these and see how your class responds to them. Our biggest challenge as teachers is to get our reluctant writers taking an interest in writing.
One of the most popular posts to date on this blog has been one outlining a number of sites that can be used for starting stories '10 Story Starter sites to get your students writing’. I thought it was time to add to the list. The Internet is full of the most amazing tools to encourage our students to write. To this end I created a Scoop.it containing the posts I find as I do research http://www.scoop.it/t/reading-and-writing-in-primary-school
Let’s face it, as teachers we need and LOVE ideas that can help us to get more from our students and engage them to the full.
1. Scholastic Story Starters
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/storystarters/storystarter1.htm
This is for K-6th grade. Here you can choose a theme fir starting a piece of writing in one of these categories – Adventure, Sci_fi, Scrambler or Fantasy. The teeacher is given help to use the application. To me this looks like a good scaffolding application for writing. .
2. Flickr storm
http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/
Flickr is a treasure trove for a teacher. It is a collection of free photos. Flickr Storm would be a way to collect pictures and postcards on a topic of interest, save them to a tray and then write a story using them as illustrations. For example, I typed in the word ‘princess’ and was given a selection. Each one I then click on would be enlarged into the tray on the right hand side of the page.
3. 17 larger than life objects
http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/07/01/17-larger-than-life-giant-objects/
This blog has a great number of photos with some objectos that are unusually large. This would certainly inspire a story!
4. 5 card Flickr
http://5card.cogdogblog.com/play.php?suit=5card
You start off by picking one of their images to add to your story. You continue in thisein till you have collected five images that you like. Then you write your story. There are a number of examples of stories previously written to look at with their selected images.
5. Wonder of the day blog
http://wonderopolis.org/
This is a site with pictures videos and words about something wondrous. The students could take a look around till they feel inspired to write.
6. 100 best first lines from novels
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2wlUXW/www.pantagraph.com/news/article_a125216a-649f-5414-88b5-76a688ea3b6a.html
In this site the students could read the first lines until an idea strikes them.
7. The Newspaper Clipping Generator
http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp
Your students could use this newspaper generator to generate a story from a list of headlines that you have collected. They write in the headline of choice and then start their report.
8. Story Starters from the Young Writer's Workshop
http://www.meddybemps.com/9.700.html
This site is the ‘Young Writers workshop’ Ther e rae plenty of ideas for younger students on this site. When you make a topic choice it takes you a template with a starting line and this can be printed.
Work through these and see how your class responds to them. Our biggest challenge as teachers is to get our reluctant writers taking an interest in writing.
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