MODULE 4

                                                   Collaborative storytelling

 

-It has been very difficult to me to decide in which way should my pupils create stories collaboratively. I guess that there are different possibilities in order to create stories in group. One very good can be to do a comic using Witty Comic. To create a comic, only one is more difficult than to create it in groups of two or three.

    Regarding collaborative storytelling, my first idea was to practice the named “cadáver exquisito”, a technique that was invented by some surrealistic poets. I guess you already know it: one starts to write a story, or perhaps a poem, writing one line on a paper (and then folds it), showing just two words written in the following line. Another person continues the story knowing just the two last words, and so. At the end the paper is unfolded and the story (or poem) has some cohesion, but not coherence. It is a funny nonsense. I show here an example that I have just written with a volunteer:

-On the other hand, I remember some ideas by Gianni Rodari, an Italian writer that wrote a lot of tales. In his book “The Grammar of Fantasy”, he explains some of his own techniques, like the “Abecepoemario” or his “Binomio fantástico”. The “Abecepoemario” consists in to write a collaborative book of poetry with a poem for each letter in the alphabet. One simpler possibility is to create alliterations or tongue-twisters in groups, using the capital letter of their own names, for instance: “Maria’s mirror moves every month…”, “Pedro pays a packet of pencils for poor people…”, “Bel and Bernabé go to the bakery to buy black bread…”.

    Finally, I have decided that the nicest idea could be to apply the “Binomio fantástico”. It’s very easy to do: randomly the pupils say words, and they must use those words to create a story. So, in a group, one says “man”, other “glass”. We have then a man made of glass. In this group they can describe how is life in the Planet of the Glassmen. In other group one says “dinosaur” and other “traffic light”. They can think about a dinosaur whose job to survive is to work as a traffic light. 

How to create stories applying the “binomio fantástico” by Gianni Rodari?

https://prezi.com/i/download/nssaxw1civnh

 

-I have create this rubric to evaluate a collaborative tale obtained by the Binomio Fantástico technique: