Five Frame Story

I made my Five Frame Story in iPhoto. That part was easy! I looked through my existing pictures, and especially with my daughter since she is moving so fast, and especially when I take pictures with my iPad, I tend to take series of pictures. So, I glanced through my pics and chose this series from McDonald's because it seemed fairly easy to turn in to a short story.

The technology part was easy. It was merely choosing some pics and a little music. Here's what is interesting:

As I was choosing pictures, I had to decide on what a good beginning was. I decided on a picture of her sleeping, the next picture was of her sticking her head into a Happy Meal box. I knew this was immediately recognizable and would move the story forward. I then had to take the pics out of order for the sake of the story. The next picture I chose was of her happy face with the toy. There were many cute pictures which I had to to cut. Being a cute picture of my beloved daughter was not enough. What moved the story forward? I thought about what Rob did with his podcast--beginning and ending with the music, and since I started with a picture or her sleeping I decided to end with a different picture of her sleeping. The second to the last picture showed her eating her sandwich (which I thought moved the story forward the amount I needed).

It seems so simple, but so much thinking had to go in to that. It's our job as writing teachers to draw out the thinking behind the choices our students make as writers, right?