Teaching with Frankenstories (ARCHIVED 23.02.28)

Teacher Panel: Tips and tricks

Frankenstories is a highly flexible tool, and it can take a bit of poking around to find what works best for you and your class.

Here are some tips and tricks you might not have tried yet.

(We're working on making Frankenstories an easier to use and more effective teaching tool. If you have any requests—big or small—let us know!)

Frankenstories gives narrative prompts by default, but making custom prompts lets you hone skills, write different text types, or explore specific content.

You can customise the text, the image, or both.

Need some ideas? Check out our Google doc full of prompts targeting different writing skills.

Find one you like, then copy and paste it into your game settings (and modify it however you like!)

(Coming soon: we're making it easier to save, re-use, and share prompts)

Write an action scene but only use dialogue

Explain how herd immunity works to a 5 year old

Write the Macbeth's relationship as a romantic comedy

(We're working on making small group play easier to set up, but here's a way to do it in the meantime)

Small groups give individuals more chances to participate, and you can compare stories afterwards.

Step 1: Create groups and add students

We recommend starting with a whole-class group, then creating additional groups based on ability, interests, or diversity.

To add students you can either:

  • Select them from your list of existing students then click Add.
  • Give them the relevant group code for their "sub group".

When adding students to a group manually, you can select from a list of your existing students

If you give students a group code, tell them to enter it in their Profile page.

Students can find where to add new group codes on their profile page.

Step 2: Assign the same game to all your groups

When you create a Teacher Panel game, you can assign it to more than one group. If you've split your class into multiple small groups, you can assign everyone the same game—same prompt, same settings—and then compare results at the end!

Not only is it fun to see how different everyone's stories turned out; it also gives more students a chance to win rounds and get their writing into the main story.

When creating a game in the teacher panel, you can assign the game to multiple groups—great for assigning the same game to multiple small groups in a class!

What if you want to allow time for students to research, brainstorm, or discuss responses during a Frankenstories game? That's hard when every round is go-go-go!

Sadly, Frankenstories doesn't have a Pause button. However, you can get a "pause-like" effect by slowing down your initial game settings to give yourself some breathing room.

To create a "pausable" game, set the timers to infinite, then end rounds manually. (Note: Make sure you're using the Teacher Panel to create this kind of game, not a casual game, or you won't be able to end the round easily).

There are two timers—writing and voting. You can set either or both of them to infinite to create a "pausable" game

With this setup, you become the timer. You can have discussions with your class, tell them when to begin writing, and tell them when to wrap up because you're about to end the round.

(Note: Currently, you need to do this setup when you create the game. You can't adjust timers once the game has been assigned. We're working on making it possible to adjust game settings later.)

Do you sometimes find that you start a game with your class, only to have it cut off halfway through because of the bell?

Well, now if you create a game with an infinite writing timer, you can leave after voting on the current round, and pick back up from the next round of writing when you're all together again.

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