by Kathleen Northrop
BoomWriter is a free website for all educators of any subject area. The website allows for easy collaborative story writing, with the possibility of publication in a paperback book! Students can create original stories with the help of their peers based on a multitude of “Story Starters.” The story starters incorporate a vast amount of interests and exciting, suspenseful cliffhangers.
This photo shows a story starter entitled “America’s Next Big Star.” Upon selecting the story starter, the teacher sees what ages and subjects it is aimed for. The teacher can also read the story starter before assigning it. On the left hand side, there are link to Lesson Plans to help the teacher ease this process into their classroom.
After the teacher chooses a story start, the students assigned to the lesson will read it and work together (or individually) to write the next part of the story. The teacher can then review the writing and provide feedback. The students assigned to the project then. Vote for the best entry to become the next chapter. This read-write-vote process will continue until all the chapters (number selected by teacher) have been completed. Once the story is completed, the class is given the option to purchase their book as a paperback!
As you can see, the educator can easily select the number of additional chapters that the students will produce. I believe it went from 1-20. Then, the teacher can assign the project to a whole class or a group of students of their choosing. This website works well with Google Classroom— you can sync your students straight from it! This photo also has a link to a letter and email template for parents. Using this, the educator can easily keep parents in the loop about the goings on of their classroom.
As an English teacher, I love a tool like this. I am constantly working to get kids writing in any way I can. Due to the large amount of story starters on varying topics, I think that teachers of all subjects could use this tool to add a little creativity and collaboration to a unit. This website would also make for a fun librarian led activity with a class (especially for teachers who are not comfortable with the writing process). It could also be used for a library sponsored creative writing or book club. Overall, I enjoyed learning about this website and can see myself using it in the near future.
Oooooh, I love this!! What a fabulous way to make writing come to life! I think the kids will love the "vote" process as that makes is a bit of a competition to have the best writing. It promotes creativity and is so engaging. I like your ides for using it as a "club", like a young writers club or other library lesson.Then the librarian can purchase and start a collection of books published by the students! Will definitely be trying this!
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