5th grade classes participated in a week-long Li’l Stories Lab. Students used central themes from Nikki Grimes’ Jazmin’s Notebook to produce stories that explore possible solutions to a central problem. They worked in pairs to illustrate two opposing outcomes. They wrote scripts for both results and then captured each story through image and audio using iMovie, resulting in a video that they can share. Here are students’ stories from December of 2018:

Subject: Literacy, Writing
Target Skills: Fictional story development; Critical thinking; Digital literacy
NYS Standards: ELA.RL.5.2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. ELA.W.5.3.A: Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally. ELA.W.5.3.E: Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events. ELA.W.5.6: With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of two pages in a single sitting.
Goals: Students will understand the central themes in the book Jazmin’s Notebook by Nikki Grimes and be able to generate original stories that explore possible solutions and outcomes to a main problem.
Outcome: Visual storyboards, written narrative, story videos