Creative Writing #9: How are teachers going about writing stories with their classes for the African Storybook Project? Here is one example from Laerskool Heledekruin…

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have just completed our online course on Digital Storytelling and now we are waiting for stories suitable for Grade 3 readers around Africa to be submitted from teachers and schools in South Africa by June 21st. It is planned that these stories will be displayed on the African Storybook Project website when it is launched in July.  </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SchoolNet was thrilled when we were invited to view a lesson presented by one of the teachers who participated in the course and I thought I would write a blogpost about this exciting lesson. Megan Rademeyer from SchoolNet went to observe the lesson at the school and this is what Megan says: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The school is Laerskool Heledekruin an Afrikaans School in Johannesburg where Yolandi (the English teacher) and Nolene (the computer teacher) are busy running with the African Storybook project. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGpVrGT2a7JJm2NzkJBGyOSYNhYBL_XmXIcxsvVLBnqaaQ240GyWA98-IlWeMfl87isq2dOQu8ntuK56szxYa3NZGVRR_zfxCJ1pEXclFTN2VQuROOc2n5AE04n1le-wksXe3xIXSMSnY/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="331" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Yolandi from <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Laerskool Heledekruin in Johannesburg</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are asking every child from Grade 4 - Grade 7 to develop a story and I saw the pictures and text that they had started on using PowerPoint. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjffsSMkLQeXIDL76fT_t0gwCYnOQpQm3sDHSHvL8cjxclSOBbDEDwwzXWbVyUU5I2vh3XhIBX302k6Tc55AOuEBFizdo7NOkjBlhx0taEtoxz7LjPBiJ1DVI3KfiFH9UjTjmKNu6C35E4/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They did a session launching the project in the hall using two of the videos from the course videos and said how useful the webinars have been. Yolandi showed a PowerPoint while I was there using some course examples that seemed to get the class excited for the task. As a class they also used the Smartboard to collectively brainstorm one example story so they could get used to the terminology like "theme", "character", "plot" etc.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBlKyFPhhSlFY97bWZxCUHtnL0fBFZ8wypBf4v55y_T4fnyANPsRYPY_fZQpShkdjCoG-NObih24H5vbVvkXxUPyRHjOikISlNgh4fzi8yTVTWvq7rtVI8tAYsuA6isHb0suEJ3LFiS0/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The kids are very excited about writing a story for a genuine audience and purpose.  They have been told that only the best ones will make it to the website - so they are really keen to make sure that their stories are good.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />This is a really exciting project. The portal of stories will be great - but<br />the African Storybook Project is also doing worthwhile work in terms of encouraging good writing.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJeq_TWNaTQc81yeOWdxMmnt_5M8cEMwY_7Rcd8fwB8mgNir8mpO26zqrne6_MYvFzi1ZHo8cx5aykU2xoMbUvAhNhXcAgjrS0-KQwH7UIzH5oZBzfCoDbs3GRGngGTEitQNOUKnF1cyk/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Enter your story for the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert competition</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks to Yolandi and Nolene for running with this project at their school and presenting such a fantastic lesson. We would like them and anyone else who is writing with a class to consider entering their Learning Activity for the <em>Microsoft Innovative Educator: Expert Competition</em>. They way they present teaching about the story at their school will be unique and really worthy of using for the competition. See the blogpost <em><a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2013/05/microsoft-innovative-educator-expert.html">Calling all innovative teachers! Apply to be a Microsoft Innovative Educator: Expert</a></em></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Write for the African Storybook Project before June 21st</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you would like to find out more about your </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">class writing a story for the African Storybook project and the incentive for the school that submits the most usable stories see the blogpost </span><a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2013/05/theres-still-time-to-submit-story.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s still time to submit a story suitable for a Grade 3 reader for the African Storybook project. Join us!</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Send us your 'writing' story</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are writing for the competition please send us a short report and some photos to use as a blogpost. We’d LOVE that. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/images/cleardot.gif" /></span></div>

African Storybook Project Writing Creative Writing #9: How are teachers going about writing stories with their classes for the African Storybook Project? Here is one example from Laerskool Heledekruin…

We have just completed our online course on Digital Storytelling and now we are waiting for stories suitable for Grade 3 readers around Afri...

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