Main foci: Literacy Skills,
Secondary foci: Reflective practice, Peer Assessment, Boys Attainment, DTaAfL,

How was it used?

The unit was used with a KS3 class who were concentrating on how to improve their story writing skills.

The pupils worked in groups of four, to piece together four parts of a story and discuss the story’s genre.

In their groups they were then given four images and asked initially to decide on an order and then to verbalise the story the pictures told.

Then each member of the group took one picture and wrote their part of the story.

Samples of completed stories were peer assessed before the students filmed themselves telling their story and evaluating their own learning.

Impact and Outcomes

All of the class were involved in the task as each member of the group had to complete their own section of the story.
Allowing them to verbalise the story first and get feedback from their group meant that the finished stories were far more successful.
The groups thought more deeply about the sequence a story can be told in through the visual prompts.

Learner Feedback

The students said that they liked the picture prompts to help them write their stories – they also liked the prompt cards that reminded them what they needed to include.

Other Resources

The stories from Inspiration Dice were printed out and cut up to provide the initial stimulus to the lesson. The images from picture book were printed out for the groups and others worked at computers to write their story.

Lesson Learnt

Having the digital stories the students had written available to display via the projector is a great way of reflecting of encouraging peer assessment and reflection.