Gifted & Talented
Gifted & Talented Digital Storytelling Projects
Welcome to this curated collection of creative digital storytelling projects that challenge your students to probe curriculum in Language Arts, History and STEAM, and re-invent the essence of that content in an original digital story. Super Creative. Super Collaborative. Super Fun.
In this collection you will find over 50 different digital storytelling projects — Challenges, we call them — that demand that your students collaborate to:
- Research the content deeply;
- Create a story around that content, be it a comedy, PSA, live spoken word, podcast, movie trailer, Ted talk, dramatic scene, … the list goes on;
- Develop that story for digital production, which includes script writing, storyboarding, location scouting, casting, rehearsing, and planning, planning, and more planning; and
- Produce the digital story — always targeting a running time of under 4 minutes — adding music and sound effects to the final edited piece.
Intersecting traditional curriculum with motifs related to personal and cultural identity; society and technology; and global perspectives, these projects ask your students to find the compelling story in these topics, and then produce that story inside of the digital literacy that pervades their lives, now and in the unfolding future.
Two Free Projects Selected for Gifted and Talented
Every Meridian Stories project follows the same curricular template. From detailed processes to evaluation rubrics to Standards correlations, take a look at how this all works with these two free projects.
The Graphic Tale of an Environmental Law
The Project: In this Challenge, you will create a (maximum) 20-frame chapter of a graphic novel in which you feature a character whose story leads him/her to propose a new environmental law. But there’s a small catch: the image of a bicycle must appear in every other frame of your chapter in some way! It can be obvious or partially hidden, but it must be there. Now, go ahead and make the world a better place …starting with a bicycle!
Producing the Spoken Word
Poetry Slam! One-Minute, Student Written Stories. Radio Moths. Live Novella Read Aloud. Staged Reading of a One Act. Or a musical. …the formats are endless.
In this Challenge, your team (or entire class) is charged with a) producing a literary event of some kind – an event that involves a performance of the spoken word; and b) shooting and producing a report of this event for the local community or school media network.
The Graphic Tale of an Environmental Law
The Project: In this Challenge, you will create a (maximum) 20-frame chapter of a graphic novel in which you feature a character whose story leads him/her to propose a new environmental law. But there’s a small catch: the image of a bicycle must appear in every other frame of your chapter in some way! It can be obvious or partially hidden, but it must be there. Now, go ahead and make the world a better place …starting with a bicycle!
Complete the form to access your free Digital Storytelling Project.
Producing the Spoken Word
Poetry Slam! One-Minute, Student Written Stories. Radio Moths. Live Novella Read Aloud. Staged Reading of a One Act. Or a musical. …the formats are endless.
In this Challenge, your team (or entire class) is charged with a) producing a literary event of some kind – an event that involves a performance of the spoken word; and b) shooting and producing a report of this event for the local community or school media network.