Students Decide Fate of Lazy Donkey

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Second-grade students in Dawn Canas' reading class at Vic A. Pitre Elementary worked as a team to write an ending for an Indian folktale, entitled "The Lazy Donkey"

Students Decide Fate of Lazy Donkey

Students Decide Fate of Lazy Donkey Second-grade students in Dawn Canas' reading class at Vic A. Pitre Elementary worked as a team to write an ending for an Indian folktale, entitled "The Lazy Donkey". Their story ending was recently published on the Dimdima Kids website, www.dimdima.com. Reading teacher, Dawn Canas, a teacher for five years, discovered the website while searching the Internet for project ideas for a folktale unit. Canas explains, "I was looking around on the Internet to find something to do with folktales. There's not a lot in the books about folktales. Folktales is a grade level expectation (GLE) and they do get tested on it for interval assessment tests." The Dimdima Kids website has a "Complete the Story" feature that includes dozens of stories. The students read the story as a class and then brainstormed about questions that needed to be answered in order to write an ending.

They used Kidspiration software to organize their thoughts and then wrote an ending to the story. They submitted their story ending on the website, using computers in their classroom. Selected endings are published on the website. Since having their story ending published, the students have gotten excited about reading more stories and submitting more story endings to the website. "Once we finished the first story they asked 'Can we do these other stories?' They were very enthusiastic about it," says Canas. "Each week a new story is posted on the website, so it's something that can be used again and again—unlike a book, where you get one story and once they've written the story, that's it," Canas adds. When asked what the students learned from this project, Canas explains, "The students learned how to problem solve. We talked about some of the endings that students wanted to use and discussed why that might not really happen in the story. They learned to make their endings flow with the story. Most of all they were creative, enjoyed it, and learned from being engaged." Click here to read the students' story on the Dimdima Kids website. Click here to read Canas' "How-to" guide. To contact Dawn Canas, please send email to dawn.canas@jppss.k12.la.us 21S Principles in Action Canas' Folktales unit reflects the following principles of the 21S program: Align pedagogy, curriculum, and technology to fully engage students in 21st century learning. Provide authentic, student-centered learning. Use technology to teach/encourage problem solving, collaboration, and communication. Written by Sarah Rosedahl Posted

Second-grade students in Dawn Canas' reading class at Vic A. Pitre Elementary worked as a team to write an ending for an Indian folktale, entitled "The Lazy Donkey". Their story ending was recently published on the Dimdima Kids website, www.dimdima.com.

Reading teacher, Dawn Canas, a teacher for five years, discovered the website while searching the Internet for project ideas for a folktale unit. Canas explains, "I was looking around on the Internet to find something to do with folktales. There's not a lot in the books about folktales. Folktales is a grade level expectation (GLE) and they do get tested on it for interval assessment tests."

The Dimdima Kids website has a "Complete the Story" feature that includes dozens of stories. The students read the story as a class and then brainstormed about questions that needed to be answered in order to write an ending. They used Kidspiration software to organize their thoughts and then wrote an ending to the story. They submitted their story ending on the website, using computers in their classroom.

Selected endings are published on the website. Since having their story ending published, the students have gotten excited about reading more stories and submitting more story endings to the website. "Once we finished the first story they asked 'Can we do these other stories?' They were very enthusiastic about it," says Canas. "Each week a new story is posted on the website, so it's something that can be used again and again—unlike a book, where you get one story and once they've written the story, that's it," Canas adds.

When asked what the students learned from this project, Canas explains, "The students learned how to problem solve. We talked about some of the endings that students wanted to use and discussed why that might not really happen in the story. They learned to make their endings flow with the story. Most of all they were creative, enjoyed it, and learned from being engaged."

Click here to read the students' story on the Dimdima Kids website.

Click here to read Canas' "How-to" guide.

To contact Dawn Canas, please send email to dawn.canas@jppss.k12.la.us

21S Principles in Action

Canas' Folktales unit reflects the following principles of the 21S program:

Align pedagogy, curriculum, and technology to fully engage students in 21st century learning.
Provide authentic, student-centered learning.
Use technology to teach/encourage problem solving, collaboration, and communication.

Written by Sarah Rosedahl

Posted - Tuesday, 18 March 2008