Project

The Mount Diamonte Adventure

The Mount Diamonte Adventure is a project where students create a narrative based on a very simple structure. This came to me as an idea to help students realize they can report past events in more than one sentence and to breakaway from reporting sequenced events with "then... then... then... then... then... "

Materials: the project file

Target Language:

· In the beginning, First, Next, After that, Afterwards, While, As, Before long, Finally, In the end

· Past Tense: simple past and/or past perfect

· Adjectives

Time: The project requires at least two lesson or spread out as small parts over 4 or 5 lessons. It also depends on how far you wish to go with the project. I choose to spread it out and give students time to process the information and make changes. I also have them rewrite the project through each stage as homework.

Projects Completed and Submitted:

	3 stories from a group of HS students in Japan
	2 stories from JHS students in S. Korea
	1 story from 2 ES students in Canada
	1 story from 2 JHS students in Quartu SE, Italy
	6 stories from 24 ES students in France
	8 stories from 32 JHS students in S. Korea
	4 stories from 12 ES students in Vietnam
	your students' stories here! send them in.

Here is the activity as described in the project file:

Materials to prepare for this project:

- One map

- One story board per group

Steps:

- Give one map to each group of students.

- Explain that they are going to create a story using this map as a guideline.

- First, give your hero a name. Give names to any other characters as they appear.

- Second, decide upon a reason for him to be going to Mt. Diamonte.

- Explain that on the way to Mt. Diamonte their hero will have 3 major episodes. Discuss some possibilities as a class (giant spider attack, giants from the mountains, a lake of fire, a pitfall, his wife calls and tells him he must stop this incessant nonsense, come home and eat dinner, accept anything)

- Have the groups decide upon 3 episodes from the discussion period or on their own.

- Have the students begin to create their storyboard entering the information in.

- Let the students begin elaborating on the events and creating their story

- When they get to the temple at Mt. Diamonte they can bring the story to any conclusion they see fit.

- Once completed, review the target language and ask the students to go back and try to improve the flow of the story

- Have the students give their story a title.

- I usually have them go back and add in 10 adjectives or adverbs..

Follow ups:

- Have the students tell their story to the class using their storyboard. This makes the project more communicative.

- Post their stories in the classroom if possible.

Finally:

- Write up their reports and send them into MES-English.com v_keypals for everyone to use and share. I will post them on the web site but first names only. Please include a picture of the students who worked on the project if possible. Thanks for you support.