Description: Scholastic’s Story Starters is an interactive web tool that can be used to inspire students by generating over a hundred fun and interesting narrative writing prompts.  Students are able to pick the type of prompt they want (Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Scrambler), then their grade level, and then the website generates four random phrases/items that make a writing prompt.  Students are able to pick what they want to write about and the format in which they will write (notebook, letter, newspaper), so that they will be the most comfortable while writing.  The website promotes creative writing and would be easy to use in the classroom. 

Bloom’s Taxonomy and Rationale: Creating; I chose this level because creating is concerned with putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole.  Students must use all they have learned about writing, from introductions, conclusions, specific details, and event order to use Story Starters in order to use a fun writing prompt to write a narrative story.  Students must be able to organize their thoughts and plan the way in which they will go about writing these narrative essays.   

ISTE Standards and Rationale: Creativity and Innovation; I chose this standard because by using this tool, students will be thinking creatively in order to write a story based off fun, narrative prompts.  In order to write on these prompts, students must be able to apply existing knowledge about writing in order to create new ideas.  By using Story Starters, students will also be creating original works as means of personal expression through writing. 

Criteria: I found Story Starters through my work with the Digital Curation Assignment.  I chose this tool for a number of reasons.  This tool is easy to use and makes the steps to finding a writing prompt very clear.  Another reason this tool is great is because it can be used in a variety of grade levels and for a variety of subject matter in schools.  The writing prompts go from kindergarten to sixth grade, and cover a wide range of topics, making it a very valuable tool to a number of teachers.  Story Starter’s is also a great tool because it gives students a fun way to learn about writing and allows them to customize their prompts, making learning more fun. 

ALCOS: [W.1.3] Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, and use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

• By using this tool, students will be prompted to write narratives that include specific details, events, and characters based on the prompts given to them.  The prompts give students the chance to tell a story in a sequence of events, with both an opener and conclusion to their story. 

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/