Making my own storybook

See 'Changes made' for this assignment

https://saripark1.wixsite.com/website/post/changes-made-4-digital-storybook

Explanation of my storybook task

This week assignment was to create a digital storybook through storybird.com website.

My storybook is 15 pages in total including the title, and each page has 3 -4 sentences and a cute picture that illustrates the storybook. Please keep in mind that some of the pictures have different characters, because I don't have a full membership of this website and they won't allow me to use the same characters. I had to spend a lot of time searching for the pictures that have the same character, but gave up in the end. Still, it makes sense (hopefully).

Target learners

I designed this book to make use in English classroom, targeting young learners aged 9-11 (primary school students) whose level is basic.

Aim of this activity

The aim of this storybook is to help the learners identify (1) past tense of verb, and (2) superlative expressions. Please keep these two goals in mind while going through the storybook.

Instruction

Read a story about a kid who wants to find out the cake thief. Identify the past tense and superlative expressions while reading the text.

(1) Underline the past tense of a verb. Find the original form of the verb as well.

(2) Highlight the superlative expressions and think what does that mean.

(3) After reading the story, share your ideas with your peers on following questions.

3-1. Do you know your parents' birthday?

3-2. What do you usually do on your parents' birthday?

3-3. Have you ever given a birthday present to your parents?

3-4. What do you think the best birthday present is for your parents?

3-5. Do you think Max's father liked the chocolate cake?

3-6. How would Max's father feel about the chocolate cake?

Worksheet for students

Storybook <Who stole the chocolate cake?>

Reflection 1

This week assignment was to create a digital storybook using a website 'storybird'. I had to go through three different steps for making a digital text. First of all, I had to set the educational aim of this storybook. I set the target learners as young basic starters who know how to read the text, but not familiar with grammar. Therefore, I set the aim of this class as knowing the (1) past form of a verb, and (2) superlative expression. After setting the goal, it became easier for me to think about the content. I wanted to give a twist inside a story so that the learners can be interested enough, therefore focus on the storyline easily. That's how I set the 'real thief of the cake' as a dog the kids own. Finally, when I finished writing a script, I drew a simple scatch on a paper. It helped me envision the image that best describes the story and choose the best illustration/picture on the site. The site was super easy to use, even for young learners! I found that in this website, storybird, there was a 'class tab' on top that you can set the name of the class, grade level, and even invite students from your class. Then you can add assignments through the website and set the instruction for each storybook. The English teacher can publish a storybook that contains the learning objective of the class and give out the instructions for the learners to follow. Also, the teacher can give a writing assignment to learners and that they should publish their own digital text. Since you can see others' storybook through the website and even 'follow', setting as a favorite author, this can be seen as interactive learning where the learners each other can participate in the process and connect to each other.

Reflection 2 - what I learned from my peer's storybook

I would also like to introduce my classmate's work, which impressed me a lot. Ji-Won's storybook <Sleepless nights> has an interesting storyline, built strong a character who has distinct characteristics, and utilized appropriate illustrations to each page. Basically, the story is about a girl who has a lot of thoughts and just cannot sleep right away. The story proceeds according to Tanya's stream of thoughts, and in the end, she finally falls into sleep. The part I especially liked the most within her storybook was page 3, where she compared the concept of imagination to a guy's mustache.

For me, this assignment was quite challenging because I had to spend quite a time choosing the appropriate illustrations for each page. There were not a lot of pictures that best describe my script, so I had to search and search and in the end, I had to choose the not-the-best option. However, her storybook seems as if someone draws pictures for your storybook. In other words, all the pictures match perfectly with her storyline. The overall style, color, theme of the illustrations were coherent and linked to each other that I would have fallen for if all the pictures were drawn by the same author.

You can check out Jiwon's work in the following link.

https://wjk5122.wixsite.com/freshair/storybook