Collaborative writing: Storyjumper

Regarding this project, my class have been working a topic which was related to ghost and supernatural events. That is why I asked them to create a collaborative story which was related to supernatural events that they imagined. As in my class of 2nd year of CSE there are 30 students, I decided to divide them into pairs and trying to join students who match each other and could help each other. 

The objectives of this activity were the following ones:

• Develop their creativity and imagination through the creation of a ghost story.
• Include vocabulary seen in class related to supernatural events.
• Include the use of Past Simple that they have practiced in class. 
• Read real stories created by their partners and assess them. 
• Promote cooperative learning through peering.

Regarding the tool use to create the story, in my case Storyjumper was the selected one, I can claim that it really helped my students achieve the goals set previously. When we talk about imagination an creativity, students were really motivated because this format is really appealing to them, as they could create their own characters, include their own settings and include any element that they needed so their story looked even more realistic. Moreover, I proposed them to do a "ghost story night", that is: we lower the blinds, turn off all the lights and we all sat down on the floor and read the stories with on flashlights, so they can feel the mood. It was a complete success, because they were really motivated to create different ghost stories and they really enjoyed the experience of sharing their stories in this uncommon way. Additionally, as we had read different crime stories and work on ghost stories too, they found it really interesting, as they could take ideas from their previous knowledge and also see that this knowledge could be applied meaningfully to create an activity in which their partners were going to be real readers of their stories. If I focus on the Use of English, this activity was perfect to include the points mentioned, and to practice irregular verb forms too and check how they are improving using this tense. With regard to cooperative learning, as it is a tool which allows more than one person writing, it helps to promote cooperative learning and students were able to write at the same time because they had laptops to work on the story. Finally, as said before, students read the stories and were assessed by their partners with the use of a checklist. As you can see, thanks to this activity, we could practice reading, writing, listening and speaking. 

In order to develop the activity, it was divided into different sessions that were the following ones:

1. Session 1: As students have previously learned about grammar and vocabulary, and we have read several ghost and crime stories, we did a brainstorming all together. The topic was "ghosts stories" and they have to think about vocabulary that could be useful to use, which could also include expressions. After that, I talked about the project of writing a cooperative writing, which they had already done but in paper format. Therefore, I showed them an example of a ghost story created with Storyjumper (Example of Storyjumper). After that, they were divided into the pairs that I have previously prepared. To end with the session, they started their draft in paper. 
2. Session 2: the pairs sat together and continued working on their draft. They did it alone, asking me for some specific vocabulary if they needed. When they finished their first draft, they exchange it with another group and read it. This way, they can write notes to their partners and show them what they could improve and what aspects they really liked. Once they received their draft back, they checked the notes and rewrite their draft. To do the notes, I show them a checklist which they use to see the key points that they could focus on. 
3. Session 3: At this point, they had almost finished their draft, but I wanted that they received extra feedback, so they exchanged again the draft with another a group different from the previous one. They checked again their notes and write the "final" product. I checked group by group the new changes in order to start working the next session with the laptops.
4. Session 4: In this session, I focused on showing them how to use Storyjumper: how to include texts, images, change colours, fonts, add or eliminate pages, create new characters, etc. They were super engaged as they could create a more realistic version of their paper story so they really wanted to start. I left them the last 15 minutes to "play" with the tool so they could start the following day.
5. Sessions 5 and 6: In these two sessions, they developed their stories and ask me for some help. However, they did it all on their own and worked really well. At the end, they attached the link to a Google Classroom activity so I could read them at home before the "ghost story night".
6. Session 7: In this final session, we did the "ghost story night" that I explained before and their partners completed a Google Form which was used as an assessment instrument in the form of checklist. This way, first they sat around and hear the stories of their partners and later, as the links to the stories were in Google Classroom, they could read them as many times as they needed to check if they understood everything and that way provided the best assessment to their partners. finally, I gave each group my feedback and their partners feedback.

Talking about the most engaging aspects of this activity, my students really like working in pairs and the tool itself, which allow them to develop their imagination in a realistic way and not only with words. Something that they didn't like about the process was the two feedback activities in the middle, because some groups thought that their stories were good and after the feedback they had to change some points. However, at the end of the process when they saw the final product and the feedback provided by me and their partners, they found it useful and admitted that they had learnt a lot from their peers' feedback.

Finally and as I always say, everything can be improved, and this time I think that I will try to give them a story written by me, so they can see more models. Additionally, I will dedicate at least one session to talk about how they felt during the process and what things they would change in the future, so this way I include them in the process of assessment and I checked their feelings regarding the feedbacks provided by their partners. I did it after all groups received their feedback, but not deeply and I think now that it is important to see how I can improve my teaching techniques and methods. 

Storyjumper: Process approach