Literature Is Information!
You know that in addition to nourishing the imagination, fiction can reveal truth and engender understanding about humanity more effectively than mere facts. Stories hold that same power for computer programming!
Let Your Literary Skills Become Your Coding Skills.
Just as you can use Things Fall Apart or Pride and Prejudice to teach insightful history, economics and politics without sacrificing literary content, you an useThe Maltese Falcon or A Wizard of Earthsea to bring programming to life in
electrifying ways. If you are comfortable with computers and the math you learned in middle school, you can use the fiction texts of StoryCode to model the digital worlds of computers and anchor the fundamentals of programming in the minds of all learners.
The Most Wonderfully Written Textbooks Ever
StoryCoders read rich and challenging short stories and novels as they learn to program, experiencing the immersive literary explorations that ELA teachers are so skilled at delivering. From within these worlds, however, the metaphors of StoryCode turn fiction into information as learners use character, plot and theme to analyze, organize and model programming structures. StoryCode texts are thus both literary and informational, classifiable under CCSS in whatever way works best for you.
There are different ways to start StoryCoding:
StoryCode Workshops
Learn to Develop Digital Metaphors.
No matter its topic, a StoryCode workshops presents computer and programming fundamentals through a literary lens, using personification and metaphor to build a foundation of essential knowledge. After focused classroom sessions, participants move on to express their understandings in fun, creative software projects. Most importantly, participants will themselves uncover new digital metaphors in their own favorite literature.
StoryCode workshops range in length from 2 and a half hours to 5 days and can be configured to your specific needs.
The StoryCode Curriculum
A Fusion of Fiction and Computer Science
The lesson and unit plans, content guide, handouts, evaluation rubrics and texts of StoryCode make up a year long course of study in digital fundamentals and programming that features learner writing from start to finish. Using up to 3 novels as well as short stories and films, StoryCode provides regular opportunities for comparative and reflective essays as well as other explorations that address all CCSS writing and reading standards.
While each unit of the curriculum is detailed in terms of both content and delivery, training is available for portions or all of it.