Storybook presents students with a series of images, and students write an article or passage using those images. This is a great tool because the images give students a structured, visual means of learning a new concept. It was originally inspired by our work with adult literacy centers, where adult ELL students would write passages from picture. This app is not only useful for ELL students, but it is also great for learning languages, creative writing, history, science, and more.

Every foreign language learner needs to start with the most basic components of a language—vocabulary. With Storybook, foreign language students can identify an object or action from each frame of the story. As they become more competent in the language they are learning, they can use adjectives to describe the scene in as much detail as possible, or even create stories based off of the images.

Storybook is also great for learning scientific concepts. For example, biology students can be presented with a series of images showing the steps of mitosis, and they are asked to explain every part of the process. History students can discuss the achievements of founding fathers or the importance of Roman engineering. StoryBook can be used to master nearly any concept that can be presented visually.

Storybook is a fun creative writing activity. Instead of a prompt, users are presented with a series of imaginative pictures. As they progress along in their story, so do the images. These serve as a creative catapult for their story and can give them many of the narrative elements that are essential to creative writing, such as plot, character, theme, and setting.

There is a robust lesson creator that allows teachers to quickly and easily create their own content. This enables them to build lessons specifically targeting the areas that their students are struggling with and gives their activities a flexibility that does not exist with static tools, like workbooks.

We have formed a partnership with Quill.org, a platform for writing tools. They offer a lightweight learning management system on which teachers can assign Storybook lessons and review students work. This integration will allow us to immediately connect with over thirty thousand students.

With paper images are expensive to print, and this type of activity would be expensive. Using a digital medium, we can enable to students to write from a wealth of engaging, graphical images.

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