Aya recently asked a truly important question that tags onto a recent discussion (in August) led by James and Leah about doing those really short stories, stories (that are really nothing more than extended PQA but a little more “story-like). They can be used to target verbs at the beginning of the year.
James and Leah made the point that doing these little short stories before trying Matava-length stories (three locations, more than one variable) would be, especially for novice TPRS/CI teachers, a life saving strategy to lead up to stories.
I would imagine that such stories would happen a lot after the first week of school on up until October or November when real stories could then begin. Here is an important point about beginning of the year strategies:
Circling with Balls can get old if we try to do it every day all day for the first month of the year. Instead, we should be thinking more about just working with the cards of one or two kids per class at the very most. Typically, I would end up doing CWB up until the end of the year in May, but spread out over the entire course of the year. I am not sure if I made that clear elsewhere and apologize if you have tried to drag CWB out longer than is pleasant.
Anyway, all of that bears on Aya’s question which she asked here at the end of September:
…I have been doing TPR commands with my students, and would like to spin the verbs into our first story, but seem to have a complete creativity block with these verbs. We are playing Simón Dice with: stand up, sit down, run (fast and slowly), walk, open, close, come, go, jump, touch, smile, laugh. They know other basic verbs from previous years (to be, to have, to want, to need). I’m hoping that someone here can come up with a humorous plot line for me….
So this is what we need. More plot lines. Please send some (see the second part of this thread called Really Simple Stories – 2). These stories do not have to be three locations, necessarily, nor do they have to be particularly humorous or loaded with details, as Catherina said in providing the story below, adding “it took me years to understand that!” I think it takes a lot of us a long time to understand that. We accept the old TPRS adage that you have dive right in. Yes, dive right in, but go through CWB/OWI to these Really Short Stories and then dive fully into real stories because the kids will by then know the rules and the grading system and thus be ready to do the longer stories with the three locations.
Catherina did respond on the blog to this question with one story. I think it and other like it are EXACTLY what Aya wants and what we all should want if we are going to make a successful transition from CWB into full blown stories.