The Story Kitchen is a website created by Bruce Van
Patter, a public speaker, illustrator, and author. The website offers a variety
of story starters and encourages young writers to finish the story. When
opening the site, students are presented with categories for selecting a hero,
a setting, and a villain, and choose one from each. A story is then generated
for students to read, but they must brainstorm possible endings to finish the
story. The reading level of the stories are for intermediate to secondary level
students but can be read aloud to younger students.
This can be a great tool to use in
the classroom to promote writing. The website even offers ways to use this tool
in the classroom to get students excited to write. Before having students read
the generated story, teachers can have students build their own stories using the
elements they selected in the beginning. The students can work together as a
whole to discuss how they might combine the elements to create a unique story,
then students can write down their own interpretations. The generated story can
then be read and compared with the class’ stories. All of the possible stories are
also provided as printable handouts, making it convenient for teachers to have
ready for students to use or to have students complete at home. Because the
stories are readily available, the story generator does not necessarily need to
be used, but it does make the process more mysterious, fun, and interesting!
The website also includes drawings
done by the creator of the site after he read stories made up by students from
different schools. Teachers can have students look at these drawings, come up
with their own to go along with the pictures, and then compare them to the
stories that originally inspired the drawings. I believe students will find
these activities enjoyable and will be inspired to use their imagination to
write amazing stories.
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