Using Pixton for written production

 Hi there!

This time I'm going to introduce a writing assignment we did in class using Pixton to create comics on the base of a narrative. 

Unfortunately, we only used groups for the first part of the activity, due to the current sanitary situation. 

First of all, I introduced the app Pixton to the students and a general overview of what we were going to do in each stage of the activity. As we can't come close to each other, I organised groups for the first stage having in mind the place where everyone was sitting. In this first stage, students had to create a draft of their narrative stories taking into account a simple infographic with the main parts of a narrative. Students were allowed to discuss their organisation with other classmates in the same groups and were asked to give advice and general feedback to each other. 

After their drafts and ideas had been checked by me, they were given some comments to improve for the next step, which was writing the narrative story. Once they handed their stories in individually, I gave them some comments for improvement again before they continued to the next step.

The final step was to create the comic using the app Pixton. They were given a short tutorial on how to use the app and review in class all together the possibilities it offers. They brought their mobile phones to class to do this step and to finish it, they took screenshots of their comics and sent them through G.Classroom. 

The specific learning objectives that we wanted to reach with this activity were:

• Using the vocabulary learnt in the first term.
• Using the past tenses learnt in the first term.
• Learning and practising the structure of a narrative.
• Improving the student's ICT skills.
• Developing creativity.

The use of this tool was very helpful to reach all these objectives in a dynamic and more motivating way since it is innovative for the students to write stories like that and not following a rigid structure.

Creativity and the use of imagination was encouraged in my students from the very beginning because they were asked to decide what type of story they wanted to work on and they were free to choose the topic and plot of their stories (the only limits I put is not killing people, just because it's Christmas time 😅)

My students were greatly surprised by the fact that they could choose the plot and be creative and were very excited during the first stage of the activity. What they enjoyed the least was writing the story before they started to do the comic, so that would maybe be the thing I would change for the next time. Another thing I would change next time is presenting the steps we are going to follow with an infographic and not only speaking because most of them are not used to taking so many steps and a couple went to the last one straight away. 

We are still in the process of finishing the comics, so we haven't shared them yet. When they are finished, we will share them using a Padlet wall and they will have to write comments on their classmates' comics to help them improve next time. 

Here you have two examples of the final products of two of my students 😇