Use YouTube stories to inspire your class to write...

There are many ways to get your class to write stories. This idea is to use YouTube videos to inspire writing. You could use these in different ways such as:

• Talk about the structure of a story in terms that your age group understands
• Show a video and then discuss the structure of the story or analyse the stages of a story
• Watch the story and ask your class to rewrite it and change it. 

1. Owl Stories by Martin Waddell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJe0WupukAw




2. Handa’s Surprise by Eileene Browne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as


3. Handa’s Hen by Eileen Browne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as




An example of how to use these videos

Let's make a start by watching ‘Owl Stories’ by Martin Waddell and then let's analyse it. Let’s see how a problem was brought in and resolved to make this beautiful story so appealing. I’ll use the following story structure idea, namely the idea of asking 'What If' and to keep asking 'What if?' until a plot emerges. 

What if question? 'What if the mother of new baby owls didn't come back from hunting for food?'  Keep asking related 'What if' questions and slowly a plot emerges as follows

1. Beginning: The babies are in their nest
2. Middle. A problem is introduced
    a) Mother Owl doesn’t come back.
    b) The baby owls start searching in the dark woods
    c) They discuss where they think Mommy could be
3. The end: The problem is resolved – Mommy comes back and finds them. 

A task
Why not take one of the other stories and see if you can analyse them to see if there was a problem or conflict introduced and resolved and how it impacted the story