Literacy

• Develop storytelling activities where students use coding concepts to plan and sequence a story.
• Use coding commands to create a set of instructions for a partner to follow, practising clear communication skills.
• Encourage students to write simple algorithms as step-by-step instructions for completing a task.

Activities could include:

Code the Story:
Choose a familiar short story or a segment from a book. Have students work in pairs to break down the story into sequential events. Provide them with coding cards that represent actions, and ask them to arrange the cards in the correct order to “code” the story’s events. This activity helps them understand sequencing and narrative structure.

Character Coding:
Select a book with distinct characters. Provide students with character cards featuring descriptions of the characters’ traits, personalities, and actions. Have students use coding instructions to move the characters through a story, making decisions based on the character cards. This activity encourages character analysis and creative storytelling.

Code Your Comic Strip:
Have students create their own comic strips with speech bubbles. Instead of drawing actions, they represent actions using coding symbols. For example, a speech bubble might have “Move forward 2” or “Turn left.” This activity combines storytelling, visual art, and coding skills.

Interactive Fairy Tale:
Choose a classic fairy tale and rewrite it with missing parts. Divide the class into groups, and assign each group a part of the story to “code.” Using coding cards or blocks, they fill in the missing parts by writing the actions that move the story forward. Once all groups have finished, combine their coded segments to create an interactive retelling of the fairy tale.

Coding Poetry:
Introduce the concept of rhythm and pattern in poetry. Provide students with coding cards that represent different types of syllables or poetic elements. Have them create their own short poems using coding instructions to guide the rhythm and structure of the poem.

Plot Twist Challenge:
Choose a well-known story and its climax. Challenge students to rewrite the story’s ending with a twist. They use coding cards to plan out the alternative ending, incorporating coding instructions that lead to unexpected outcomes. This activity promotes creative thinking and understanding of plot structure.

Character Dialogue Code:
Provide students with a dialogue between two characters. Using coding symbols, have them create a flowchart-like representation of the conversation, showing who speaks when and what they say. This exercise helps them analyse dialogue and practice visualising conversations.

Coding Charades:
Write down various actions and emotions on separate cards. Students take turns drawing a card and acting out the action or emotion while their classmates guess. This helps students associate coding symbols with real-world actions and expressions.

Mystery Code:
Create a mystery scenario where clues are hidden around the room. Provide students with coding cards that represent movements or directions. They follow the clues using the coded instructions to solve the mystery. This activity encourages deduction and critical thinking.

Coding Vocabulary Story:
Choose a set of vocabulary words from a unit of study. Have students work individually or in pairs to create a short story that incorporates those vocabulary words. They use coding cards to indicate when and how the words will be used in the story.

Code the Plot:
Have students choose a classic fairy tale or fable. They analyse the story’s plot structure and identify key events. Using coding symbols, students represent these events in a sequence. Then, they use the coded symbols to retell the story in a concise and creative format.

Coding Choose-Your-Own-Adventure:
Students write a choose-your-own-adventure story with coding instructions. They create branching paths using coding symbols to guide readers to different outcomes based on their choices. This activity combines narrative writing with interactive storytelling.

Collaborative Coded Story:
Divide the class into small groups. Each group starts a story by writing a short introduction. They then pass their story to the next group, who continue it using coding instructions to advance the plot. After several rounds, groups share their completed, uniquely coded stories.

Poetry Coding Challenge:
Assign different types of poetry (e.g., haiku, acrostic, rhyming couplets). Students write poems following the assigned structure, integrating coding symbols to represent syllable patterns or rhyme schemes.

Coded Journal Entries:
Students keep daily journals with a twist. Instead of traditional entries, they write journal prompts using coding symbols. For instance, “Write a reflection on your day using a ‘move forward’ and a ‘turn right’ instruction.”

Coding Character Development:
Choose a character from literature, history, or imagination. Students create character profiles by writing descriptive paragraphs. Then, they assign coding instructions to certain traits, actions, or characteristics. This activity enhances character analysis and writing skills.

Coded Analogies:
Provide students with pairs of words related by analogy (e.g., cat : meow :: dog : ?). Students write coded instructions to represent the relationship between the words. This challenges their ability to express abstract concepts through coding symbols.

Secret Message Stories:
Students write stories containing hidden messages or codes. Readers decode the messages by translating the coding symbols back into words. This activity adds an element of mystery and cryptography to writing.

Narrative Algorithm:
Introduce the concept of algorithms as step-by-step processes. Students write a narrative “algorithm” that breaks down a personal experience or fictional event into precise steps, incorporating both detailed descriptions and coding symbols.

Historical Event Code:
Choose a historical event or figure. Students research and write a short historical account, embedding coding symbols throughout the text to represent different elements of the event or figure’s significance.