Operation Exaggeration - Tall tales that are true

I. Briefly review the project form. Discuss the project theme, outline and time line; review the project and curriculum objectives.

Tales - Tall, True, Old and New is an anthology in the new Grade 4 Reading program. For a writing experience, the students were asked to write a Tall Tale that was published on a personal web page along with three pictures of the students own art work based on their tall tales. Students scanned their pictures and created their own web page of their tall tale using an html editor AOLPress. Three classes participated in the project from February 1999, to May 1999.

This project is a part of a curriculum unit on the tales genre, more specifically tall tales. Throught this unit, the students learned about lessons and values taught and learned through these tall tales. This project fulfilled the reading and writing objectives of this unit. This project also provided the grade 4 students with their first exposure to internet technology and they learned word processing, the Internet and webpage creation skills as a means of promoting their ideas.

II. Show the audience the outcome of the project proposal.

Results and a tour of the project can be seen at: http://www.stke.k12.nf.ca/talltales

III. Briefly comment on any successes or problems that were encountered throughout the life of the project.

The students really enjoyed doing this project and we received a lot of positive comments from other teachers and parents about the project. The biggest problem was that the teachers involved did not have a lot of experience with the technology, so it was a real learning experience for all involved. The participating teachers did learn a lot considering this was their first time doing this sort of project. The only other thing that could be considered a problem was the time it took to scan all the pictures. Each student drew three pictures which turned out to be well over 180 pictures that needed to be scanned during class time. Another scanner would have come in handy but we will have one by the end of the summer.

IV. Comment on any aspects of the project that you would do differently.

I would hope that the classroom teachers would be a greater help next year. Other than some changes to make the project more of an information exchange by involving other students, the project was a resounding success.

V. Comment on if and how the project can be expanded next year.

Having met with some other teachers at Hook, Line and Net, 99 who are doing this curriculum unit, some discussion took place as to how the project could be expanded next year and include our schools in a block project. We decided that since most of the tall tales that the students wrote were based upon one main character, usually some sort of monster or hero, we could ask the students to be more descriptive about this monster or hero while they were writing their tall tale. They could still draw their own pictures, but they would be partnered with another student from another class who would receive a copy of the text of the tall tale and have to reproduce an image of the monster or hero using only the description in the text. All of this would then be reproduced on the Internet with their own pictures and their partners interpretation of the main character. One other class, who did a project on this unit but did not have their students create their own web pages (older students created them) will attempt that in the coming year. He felt that it may be difficult but since he would be working with other people who had students of this age group create their own web pages, he felt he would have the help needed through the other project leaders.