Helping students learn to read and write is not an easy task. Especially for some of our student population who are learning English for the very first time.

Sometimes they may sit at their desk, blankly, in need of direction of where to start or how to translate what they want to say from their native language.

Has anyone heard of

Story Jumper?

This problem got me thinking. This thinking got me tinkering.

Then, I started to tinker with different tools online on how to best engage our students to demonstrate their growth of literacy skills in English and their native language through digital means of representation.

In our classes, I already see evidence of our students producing stories and their personal narratives by putting pen to paper or drawing.

A tool that I've started using in my ELA classroom is StoryJumper.com. It allows my students to integrate all the elements of a story, piece it together on a digital platform, and share it with a much larger audience.

Students who are first developing their English language skills can begin by creating stories about their lives at home and their interests.

For their Native Language/Arts Portfolio Project, they can tell their immigration stories also by creating a storybook. They can select from a variety of scenes, upload photos, or choose photos from the internet to illustrate and write their stories. It is a profoundly different feeling when you see your language and experiences come to life in a book.

Students can also shine by expressing their understanding and creativity by way of making storybooks. In ELA, they can make adapted storybook versions of Romeo and Juliet or A Raisin in the Sun, to show those themes in

another setting, or in modern times.

And as they unlock the past in history class, they can describe the events, tailored to a particular audience, to teach other people about history...

I am Cartoon Obama, and I approve of this message.

...And how it has influenced our lives today, relating it to current events.

If we want to push our students to be creative, they are able to do so by depicting themselves in a way they see themselves, narrating their hero's journeys.

EQUITY

There will be some students that have adept digital, media, and print literacies, due to more accessibilities, so they can get started on a project like this and navigate through it much quicker.

Since one of our Core Values, is Equity, it is important that this process can also be scaffolded for some students by either setting up pages for them or selecting a pre-made book template. Students can then type or tell you what is happening in the story. Afterwards, for students that struggle with reading, you can do a shared reading of the story with them (either 1:1 or a small group) and then move on to more independent reading.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.5

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.6

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.

Look! It's even standards aligned!