Choose Your Own Adventure

When we did this project, I wanted my students to study U.S. regions (a 5th grade state standard), use research and writing skills, use technology in a new way to add to their project toolkits,  and to apply creative and logical thinking skills.

I showed my students the goals and an example of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure slideshow I made about Canada. Then we discussed what we thought a good project would include. Some of their ideas:

• how many choice slides to offer
  
• highlight a variety of things about the target region
  
• interesting writing with correct conventions
  
• a balance of content details - specific, without being lengthy (Golidlocks)
  

We added the criteria that the information should be accurate, and stories should stay within their select regions.

Students worked in pairs, trios, or individuals, according to their preferences, and they also chose the region to focus on for the project. Some had background knowledge about specific places, and others were researching everything. The slides started with a choice about which state or city to visit, and each choice led to another choice, or a dead end, with regional highlights as part of the virtual tour:

Our current IB-PYP unit of inquiry is How We Organize Ourselves, so the activity supported both the understanding of spatial organization of U.S. regions, in addition to sequence organization possibilities in their stories. I also liked that in setting up choices for a virtual tour of the regions, students would essentially be writing if/then statements, just as coding requires.

The links led to different Google Slides, which the students arranged so that the tour/story would make sense. Of course, being 5th graders, some of the story options ended rather unfortunately:

Others ended more optimistically:

This was an easily accessible, open-ended activity for all students that invited collaboration, problem-solving, and research. Students were highly motivated as they created their stories, and now they have a project tool to select for future assignments. Several groups voluntarily went back to add more to their stories after we presented them, just for fun.

Although Google Slides isn't the most unusual technology tool, the choose-your-own-adventure component made it more engaging for students who write reluctantly, as well as students who are confident writers and researchers. This was a great activity for the beginning of the school year, showing where students are in time management, proofreading, and presentation organization, in addition to the stated project objectives. I loved seeing the creativity through their writing voices, tour stop options/dead ends, and selected details.