StoryBird for Educators

For teachers that want to provide their students with creative outlets, one excellent website is StoryBird for Educators. Using pre-made illustrations, the site claims to inspire students to write better and read often. Students can create picture books, chapter books, or illustrated poetry. 

Students start by selecting the images they like and building a story around them. There are thousands to choose from--such as diverse characters and great scenes and backdrops. This is a great exercise to get students to make connections between images and the text they create. Additionally, the site provides many guides that help students learn about the mechanics of good storytelling--like figurative language, points of view, and developing characters.

Teachers can also create accounts where they can manage student work, give assignments, and track progress. And, it is completely safe to use. Students are not required to provide emails, the site does not allow students to enter last names or personal information, and students can only read the stories of their classmates and only collaborate and communicate with their classmates.

Also, although the site saves student-created works, users can purchase PDF downloads of their books or buy actual printed copies, which they can share with friends and family.

This would be an excellent resource in any elementary or middle school language arts classroom. It encourages student creativity and allows them to practice their writing skills. By choosing images and themes that they like and writing the stories that they are inspired to write, students might be more motivated to put in more effort when writing.