Our Best Interactive Story Project Yet

I've been experimenting with interactive story projects for a couple years now and this past week we worked through our best one yet. Sample resources and tutorials are included below.

What Is an Interactive Story?
Like the others I've written about, this project gave older students (from high school Creative Writing this time) a chance to write short stories for younger students (3rd graders in this case). It's interactive, because after each short piece of the story we include a feedback survey. The younger students fill out the survey to give the authors input on what happens next.

I originally started working on these projects as a way to motivate writers and to encourage younger students to read for pleasure. I was able to be in the classes at both grade levels this time and it really seemed to accomplish that goal. We had high engagement at the high school, since they knew the younger students would be reading their work. And the younger students loved seeing what the high schoolers had written. All teachers involved were very pleased with the project.

How Did We Do It This Time?
In this case, students wrote their introductory "chapter" in a Google Doc. The teacher required three parts:

First came the introduction to the story. We encouraged students to introduce a character or two, establish a setting and lead up to a problem. 

Next, students added a link to a Google Form that asked some questions of the readers. We required students to ask at least two multiple choice questions and one open ended question. See below for more information about gathering feedback.

Finally, we required an author bio that included the students' interests and goals. In our case, most of the stories were written by two students working together. 

You can see the sample document we showed the class here. Check out the sample story (written by a student, with a few edits) and the sample survey to see how those might look.

The survey and link to the survey were the only steps of the project that required the students to learn some tech skills. I walked them through the process in class, but this document shows all the steps. The final part of it includes a link to a video tutorial. 

Other Details

• We were pressed for time at the end of our semester, so we only did two sections of the story that asked for reader feedback, then a third part that wrapped the stories up. It took us just about two weeks of class time to complete that. In the future we hope to keep the project going longer, with at least two more chapters.
• I shared the stories with the younger students by creating a Google Site that linked to each story document. Whenever I share stories like this, I make a copy of the student document, edit it if necessary, then post the shareable link to the document on the Google Site. 
• The authors should be encouraged to use some of the reader input, but they certainly don't have to incorporate it all. The open ended questions especially can bring in too many ideas. Ultimately the decision is up to the author on how the story proceeds.
• For the second chapter, we had students write an author note in place of the "About the Author" section. The note thanked the readers for their input, then explained just a little about how they used that input to write their story. Again, most of these documents, including the story, link to the survey and the authors' note, were only a page long.
• If you want more information about gathering feedback, see this summary I made for a similar comic project. You can read more about that in this post from a couple years ago.

My Updated Animation and Interactive Stories Projects

I updated two of my popular lessons recently:

• Simple Animations Using Google Slides
• Interactive Stories Using Google Slides

Students love both of these simple projects and the lessons come "ready to assign".

You'll get access to student directions in a Google Doc that you can simply post in Google Classroom. Students will follow the step by step instructions and watch video tutorials as they go. 

Both projects work well in any subject area for grades 5 - 12. The students will create their projects using Google Slides.

The lessons are $2 each on Teachers Pay Teachers, but you can buy both in a bundle for just $3. Here are the links.

• Simple Animations
• Interactive Stories
• The Bundle of both projects

Making a Story Together - High school and elementary connections for authentic audience and engagement

We recently tried another interactive story experiment connecting older students with younger students. As always, the goal with this is to encourage reading in the earlier grades and creativity with the older students. All feedback so far indicates this was a success.

I've written previously about ways to do this with comics or just writing in a Google Doc and one very different method with less input from the younger students.

This story we just finished up is more like the latter case, with a twist inspired by our Boomwriter activity from last winter. The final result can be read at the links below, but first here is the process we used.

• I found five high school students who were interested in trying this and their teacher agreed they could work with me. I managed it all through Google Classroom.
• I also gave a survey to elementary students asking them to name some characters, choose a general setting and choose some character traits. This was presented to all students in grades K - 4, but only a few classrooms really participated. 
• In pairs or individually, the high school students wrote short introductions to a story that fit the criteria generated by that survey. Alone or in groups, they generated a total of three different starters.
• I made a second survey presenting those story starters to the elementary class so they could pick their favorite.
• For the next round of writing, the high school students added to the story starter that the elementary students liked best. Again, each of those groups or individuals wrote the next part as they wanted the story to turn out. That again produced three different possible stories. 
• We continued this for a couple rounds of elementary students voting on their favorite, writing the next parts, voting again and so on. Along with asking which story the elementary students liked best, I'd also ask for suggestions for dialogue or action. It gave them a fun chance to be creative.
• Then since school was getting out soon, I had the high school students work together on bringing the story to a conclusion.

As you might imagine, the students wanted it to be humorous. That and the disjointed way we built the story definitely made it silly. You can read the story here:

• This page has the first three parts.
• This page has the final parts.
• I also had the students at the high school write these short bios so the younger students could get to know them.

The teachers told me that both groups of students, young and old, really got into the activity. We had to rush a few stages, so by the last round only one 3rd grade class was still voting. Their input showed enthusiasm, though, and the teacher told me they were excited to see where the story was going.

Which Method Is Best?

Having tried a few different methods now, I have to say my original approach (again, you can read it here) is still my favorite. In that one, the readers gave their input on the direction of the upcoming chapter, then the writers wrote it how they wanted to. I prefer that because:

• The writers have more control (and therefore more buy-in) over the outcome of each chapter.
• More importantly, they won't be disappointed when the ideas they worked hard on don't get picked. As I said with the Boomwriter activity, I can tell some students lose enthusiasm when their work isn't chosen.

There are still some downsides. You'll have to manage multiple stories if you have multiple groups of writers. Along with this, the readers will probably not be reading every story. They too will work in groups and probably will read only one or two different stories.