This is from a group of grade 2 students I work with.
We’ve been talking in the second grade about different ways we can tell a story. One of the things we’ve thought deeply about is how to make stories more visual. Two classes joined together and used the story of Jack and the Beanstalk (did you guess that already?). The wanted to share their findings to parents and classmates at an assembly. Different groups (mixed groups by student choice and interest) chose different ways to tell the story. There were actors, claymation, documentary (of the process of creation, not the story itself) storybooks and retells.
As a tech coach I worked with the documentary team and the claymation team.
Both groups worked hard to share their story through images. In the documentary group, they all agreed that pictures were important to document the process and interviews would create a connection with people (mainly for the parents).
At the end of the four weeks (a total of eight lessons). The students (not just the ones in the creation groups) were all very impressed with the documentary. They were amazed at how far they had come and all of the students loved seeing their work of the process.
Joe Teft 