A Learning Activity is a strategy a teacher chooses to actively
engage students in learning a concept or skill using a digital tool/resource.
You may save this Learning Activity to your hard drive as an .html file by
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Phase:
During/Explore/Explain
Activity:
The teacher will share My Hero's Journey Narrative Correspondence from the publishing editor. Once the students have had the opportunity to read the letter and its attachment (My Hero’s Journey Narrative Rubric), the teacher will ask questions to ensure the students understand what they will need to do to be successful with the activity.
The student will write a business letter response to his/her editor to share the link to the class Padlet page and request feedback on his/her work.
The students will use the peer review notes to revise, edit, and publish their narratives to the class Padlet page.
Assessment Strategies:
The teacher can assess the students' narrative writing skills and application of the traditional hero's journey patterns and characteristics using the same My Hero’s Journey Narrative Rubric.
Advanced Preparation:
The teacher will need to ...
make a copy of the My Hero's Journey Narrative Correspondence from the editor and personalize it before sharing it with the students. (To personalize the letter, the teacher will need to replace the highlighted questions with his/her name and that of the school.)
determine how the students will be grouped for the peer review activity.
make sure students are familiar with the expectations and models of good narrative writing before beginning this learning activity.
The teacher may need to ...
Depending on the students' ability levels, the teacher may want to have the students annotate the letter from the editor and the rubric to demonstrate their understanding of the activity's expectations instead of using a question and answer session to assess this before the activity begins.
Depending on the students' previous experiences, they may or may not need a model of a business letter or a business letter template before writing their responses to their editor.
The teacher may want to strategically partner students for the peer review activity or use groups of three where two students work together to review another's work.
The teacher may want to create a fake email account for students to respond to the editor in an email using the business letter format to also address email etiquette in the activity and give the activity a more real-world experience.
Variation Tips (optional):
Although this learning activity is designed to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the traditional hero's journey patterns and characteristics, it could easily be modified to use with any narrative writing activity.
As students will finish this activity at different times, the teacher may want to share the Giraffe Heroes Project with early finishers to let them explore stories about real-life heroes to share with the class at another time.
Notes or Recommendations (optional):
The teacher may need to conference with the student(s) concerning the peer review - may be done one-on-one or with both partners.
Padlet is a collaborative tool that allows students to share their work, images, videos, etc. with others. It can be set up using a private link so that only those with the link can view or access it. (Padlet Tutorial if needed.)