PhotoStory in Year 2

In my first year I didn't teach kids PhotoStory. I was trying to keep my head above water, and opted for other methods that students could present their work. In year two, particularly once we went 3 to 1 with netbooks, I broke out PhotoStory with the kids. It was mildly successful, although there were some things I needed to do differently. This year I have busted out PhotoStory fairly early on with big dreams of righting some of my previous mistakes.

The Set-Up
We have been reading about a myriad of American Indian Cultural Regions. To me, this presented an opportunity for us to do the following:
1. categorize information (Geography, Natural Resources, Culture, etc)
2. analyze the information for strengths and weaknesses
3. compare and contrast information from different regions

The big question one always have with this sort of thing is: Now what?! I opted to have kids create a PhotoStory persuading others to settle in that region. In doing that, they would need to synthesize all of that information into a persuasive piece.

Differences in Year Two
One of the things I have done differently is providing enough scaffolding leading up to the PhotoStory. Kids need to practice analyzing information in different ways. They need to look for strengths and explain why they are strengths. These can then be used in their PhotoStory. Another change was printing out the storyboard they used. Instead of having kids type into a form I created, I wanted them to be computer-free. This would keep the focus on the narration and content.

The result has been dramatically different (I think...). We aren't finished, but kids are making great strides. They are writing really persuasive pieces that use specific details to describe their assigned region. They are making comparisons that accurately reflect why their region would be more desireable ("Come to the Southwest region where the climate is always warm and dry unlike the Northwest where it rains all the time."). While it is a different cohort, and we aren't done, I'd like to think the scaffolding has helped them be far more successful.