Episode 83 was a real treat for me. I yakked with Elontra Hall about something near and dear...storytelling. I'm so committed to enhancing this skill in the classroom, that I just couldn't quit with one episode. What makes this episode so special, is I bring back the original sources. Samantha Hart and Merrick Kasper are here to explore storytelling from their perspective. What's interesting, however, is that these two brilliant young folks don't address teachers using stories, but instead kids using stories to peer teach.

My students used the hero's journey template to enlighten their peers. Of course my buddies the Hyperdocs Girls have an outstanding hero's journey template ready and waiting for you to copy and transform.

In addition to a peer teaching storytelling activity, these young ladies will also introduce you to a neat tool called Storybird. Storybird empowers kids to take a story and transform it into a beautiful and enchanting picture book. It's remarkably easy to use and a highly recommend it.

My kids were meandering through a unit on India. We needed to grasp the impact of two remarkable individuals...Siddhartha Gautama and Ashoka. Here's how we did it:

Students paired up...one took Gautama and one took Ashoka.

Each student then applied their subject to the hero's journey template. Here's my rendition which I created for this assignment.

Students made each page of their Storybird a phase in the hero's journey.

Kids then enlightened their partner by presenting their Storybird.