The Foundation for a Meaningful Life
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA

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Robot Storyboards

Fourth grade students have been learning about the elements of storytelling by creating storyboards to highlight the characters, setting, conflict, and major plot points of Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot. The project challenged students to distill the chapter book into eight panels, each colorfully depicting a major event in the story. “Narrowing down is a very hard skill for fourth graders,” says writing teacher Mary Munkenbeck. “So it’s been great to see them using those determining importance skills to find those eight events that tell the story.”
 
Mary read The Wild Robot to her classes, sharing a chapter at a time at the end of each class. Students wrote about the characters and setting in their notebooks and then discussed the story in small groups to identify the most significant events, documenting them in detail. Finally, they narrowed the major plot moments down to the eight that they believed were critical to the story. 
 
The Storyboard Project required students to create detailed illustrations and descriptions of the story elements and plot points. Students created images and wrote descriptions of the book’s protagonist and setting using a manila folder to organize their storyboard. An additional two panels and writing depicted the main problem and solution in the story. Inside the folder, students created eight panels that colorfully explain the sequence of the story’s plot.
 
Even students who may have been intimidated by the art requirements of the project found that they could be successful by starting their storyboard images with small details and then building them up. By working neatly and carefully, each student created a storyboard they were proud of.
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