Plot a story
Outline of the activity
The children identify the main events within a story and these are plotted on the horizontal axis on a graph. On a scale of one to ten, the children then rate the main events according to excitement/interest value and this is plotted on the vertical axis.
Skills Covered
Collect, represent and interpret data using a line graph. Use computers as a tool for representing and exploring data. Develop children’s ability to organise and structure their writing.
Rationale
Emphasis in literacy hour had been placed on story structure. The children analysed stories together identifying the main events. They discussed how the authors build up tension and excitement and how the reader’s attention is kept. Plotting a graph, showed the children a pictorial representation of the story with recognisable features as identified.
Result
The children analysed their graphs and explained to their peers how the story they had read or written developed by referring to the excitability/interest value of the main events that they had plotted.
