Creative Mind Mapping Stories

kid on a skateboard wearing airplane wings and pilot glasses

This kit presents a project in which pupils are asked to produce a collaborative story using different media in order to explore each other’s cultures and countries. In this way, they can also discover aspects of their own cultures that they never thought about previously. The story can be designed to reach certain literature and language-based skills; however, it is also an opportunity to creatively present the results and outcomes of experiments and research made in other disciplines - perhaps even unexpected at the outset of the project - such as, science, geography, history and maths. Why should these results be presented only through charts and diagrams? With this perspective in mind, pupils first agree on a common scenario and create characters that will be travelling throughout their countries. To do so they use mind mapping collaborative tools in order to brainstorm and articulate characters’ personality traits in an effective and comprehensive way. In parallel, they gather general information about their partners’ cultures, countries and hometowns. They also ask their partners more specific information about their cultures and customs in order to be as accurate as possible. The mind mapping technique is used throughout the project to help them articulating all the gathered information and build their collaborative story.

Objectives

People often confuse creativity with innovation. Both terms in fact describe rather different processes: innovation is linked to creating new (technological) tools and implies economic and social value utility, while creativity reflects an original and innovative way to articulate ideas and concepts in order to open up new perspectives from a given problem. In this project, pupils look for all kinds of information - from general to more discipline specific features - and integrate them in a story. They must keep the pertinence and validity of the information, as they integrate it within their story. At first glance, this type of project may sound language/literature oriented; however, it can be based on any discipline such as science, geography, history or maths in order to present, in a creative and lively way, the outcome of an experiment, a survey or a research project, e.g., the results of a survey about food habits in each involved country, an overview of European geographical diversity, a presentation of hidden mathematical rules within famous European Romanesque buildings, etc. NB: Teachers are strongly encouraged to involve other colleagues from different disciplines within their school (e.g., geography teachers, language teachers, maths teachers, etc.). This type of collaboration instills an excellent teamwork dynamic that the pupils themselves can bear in mind when working with their partners. The story is an opportunity to: • Introduce each other using a foreign language • Transform an already-existing story or tale, • Recreate the dialogue of a comic strip, • Illustrate their understanding of an idea, a concept, a story, • Report on a an event, or recount an historic event, • Present the outcomes of a study and/or how to solve a problem, • Present an event, a project, a play, etc. • Spark debates, thoughts, etc… Competencies involved This type of project enables pupils to: •Work in the framework of a true collaborative project, using discipline-related knowledge in a concrete way. •Develop collaborative skills and become familiar with mind mapping. •Develop critical thinking skills when looking for, choosing and putting together information relevant to the project. •Develop a creative mind by approaching different topics in a rather atypical way. •Develop both written and spoken communication skills in foreign language(s). •Explore different forms of written communication such as interview, diary, reportage, scrapbook, review, etc. •Learn how to express themselves through different types of media – web and graphic design, digital photography, video storytelling, etc. •Learn about such issues as copyright, publishing, etc. •Enhance their ICT skills within a collaborative project. •Develop true intercultural skills.

Collaboration

Preparatory work Teachers: •Teachers agree with their foreign partner(s) and colleagues from other disciplines on: - the pedagogical goals of the overall project, - the nature of the final outcome, and - the medium/media to be used (web publishing, video, pictures, etc.). •They must also agree on the nature of the scenario that pupils will have to design: will it be totally free or based on an existing story, legend, book, such as Baron Münchhausen, Don Quichotte, etc.? a) Scenario and character(s) Teachers: •Guide the pupils by providing them with the basics of story telling: how to structure a story and its characters – number, traits, etc. •Present the story to the pupils detailing each characters as well as the true substance and moral of the story. •Help pupils to identify potential cultural divergences and convergences between their analysis and that of their partners. Pupils: Scenario designed from scratch •Pupils design a first mind map in order to define and agree on the different constituents of the story. •At the same time they split into groups and design a mind map to define the personality traits of each character of their story. Scenario designed from an existing story •In each country pupils design a mind map that represents the architecture of the story on which their own story will be based. •They also draw up the overall project timetable. •They exchange, compare and discuss each other’s mind map before merging them in a ‘common’ one. •They then design a new mind map in order to define and agree on the different components of the story. •At the same time, they split into groups and design a mind map to define the personality traits of each character of their story. b) Looking for and exchanging information Pupils: •Pupils look for relevant information about their partners’ culture and country on the Internet with their literature/language teacher. In the case of a bilateral project •Pupils from School A will write parts of the story taking place in the country of School B, and vice versa. This can be done online using a wiki or Google Docs In the case of interdisciplinary projects •In parallel, the pupils work with their maths/biology/geography/history/etc. teacher(s) on the project, the outcome of which will form the core of the story. •Finally, they start thinking about the way they will blend the outcomes of this project with the overall collaborative story they are writing. c) Collaborative writing Pupils: •They sort all the information out, discuss it and use it to sketch in the parts of the story they will be writing. To do so they can use another mind map. •They send it to their partners to discuss it (discuss about clichés and ways other people can see us). •They start writing their part of the story. The story may be written collaboratively online using a wiki or Google docs. The teachers must agree at what times their pupils parts will be added so there is no overwriting of material. •They can illustrate it with extra documents supposedly made by one of the characters, such as videos, fictitious newspaper articles, maps, postcards, etc. •It is crucial that pupils keep their partners posted about their progress. This can be done through the TwinSpace using the mailbox, forum and or chat tools. d) Publishing Teachers: •Here teachers must be careful to be realistic, and not too overly ambitious from a technical point of view. Pedagogical aspects of a project can easily be overcome by unhandled technical problem, ruining the ‘raison d’être’ of the project as well as everyone’s efforts and commitment. Pupils: The final publishing can take different forms: •by publishing part of the TwinSpace devoted to the project •by publishing on Google Docs •by using a tool such as magazine factory •by publishing a paper copy of all the texts with illustrations •by setting up an online mind map from which one could access the different parts of the story (with hyperlinks to documents and illustration stored online

Evaluation & Assessment

Asking pupils to present their project to other classes is a very good way to assess their overall involvement in the project. It may also be presented to parents during a parents evening or in the school magazine or newsletter.

Follow up

Why not add your outcomes to the EuroCreator website? If you have created a video during the project, you can also upload it on the EuroCreator website (http://www.eurocreator.com/). In this way, other schools can see the work that your project has done and you can receive a signed certificate from European Commissioner, Ján Figel’.

Additional information

Age from:

10
Age to:

19
Difficulty:

Advanced

Additional information

School subjects

Key competences