Project 1: Animated Storytelling¶

Students will use Snap! basics to implement an animated version of a story.

Overview¶

Storytelling is a great way to convey culture. Some examples of storytelling are plays and nursery rhymes. Famous plays like those of William Shakespeare have been performed over centuries. Some have been adapted for modern times like West Side Story. A nursery rhyme is a short poem or song written for children. Though the term is typically applied to British or other English language poems, similar concepts exist in many world cultures. These short stories are generally meant to entertain and/or calm young children. Some are believed to have a hidden moral or meaning related to historical events, but many of these meanings are questionable.

Emphasize with students¶

Digital tools and technologies can help capture stories in our own heritage, especially ones that might otherwise be lost, or difficult to write down¶

In North America there are over 1000 indigenous communities, speaking more than 300 distinct languages, and a multitude of dialects. Students may be familiar with many places in North America that have been given names adapted from the original aboriginal language spoken in the area, such as Alaska (“peninsula”), or Ontario (“beautiful lake”), or Minnesota (“cloudy water”), or Seattle (“named after a Native American Chief”). Traditionally indigenous peoples relied on storytelling instead of the written language to pass down information and history.

Many other communities have used storytelling as a method to pass down history. And these stories were often shared from generation to generation by word of mouth from a relative or elder.

For this project, student may be encouraged to portray an animation that depicts some aspect of their own heritage, especially stories that have been passed down by word of mouth. Some ideas:

animation of how a city/town name came to be
animated map of an immigration journey
a personal family story

Reference¶

Details¶

Behavior¶

You will create a short animation in Snap! depicting a story of your choice.

Whenever the green flag is clicked, your Snap! animation should display your chosen story line by line somewhere on the stage. (This should work correctly even if the last run was interrupted and restart.)
As each line is shown, sprites should act out the story.
The animation should advance on its own, but should do so at a pace that allows each action to complete and the viewer to read the line before the next line is shown and new action begins.
In addition, the sprites must act out the story; you should not simply create a series of static backgrounds or costumes that show a stop*motion version of the story.
Each line must be readable and must stay shown while the corresponding action is occurring.
When the story ends, there should be a way for the user to replay the entire animation from the beginning.
You are free to be as creative as you like with your choice of sprites and actions.

You may choose from the sprites provided by Snap! or create your own. (You will not be graded on your artistic skills.) You may interpret the story literally or be clever with your depiction (but don’t go too far). However, all sprites, behaviors, words, and animations must be school*appropriate.

If you choose a particularly long story, you may not need to animate the whole thing. Please check with your teacher if you think your idea is long enough for this.

Implementation Details¶

Fill out a Planning Worksheet for the above program. Make sure you consider all aspects of the program carefully.
As mentioned above, your animation must display the text and animate each line. Action must be performed by sprites and must consist of more than simply changing costumes. You must include the following components in your animation:

At least two sprites that act in some way to contribute to the depiction of the story
At least one sprite that moves
At least one sprite that rotates
At least one sprite that changes costume
At least one sprite that is both hidden and shown at some point

Note that multiple of these requirements may be satisfied by the same sprite (e.g. the same sprite can both move and change costume), but you must have at least two separate sprites that act in the animation.

Emphasize with students (Continued)¶

Grading Scheme/Rubric¶

Functional Correctness (Behavior)
Animation depicts a story	2 points
Story is shown one line at a time	2 points
Each line is accompanied by sprites depicting the story, and all action is related to the current line	3 points
Clicking green flag starts animation from beginning	1 point
Animation progresses at a reasonable pace	2 points
User is able to restart animation when it concludes	2 points
Total	12 points
Technical Correctness (Implementation)
Program shows good creativity and effort	2 points
At least two sprites participate in the action	2 points
At least one sprite moves	1 points
At least one sprite rotates	1 points
At least one sprite changes costume	1 points
At least one sprite hides and/or appears	1 points
Total	8 points
PROJECT TOTAL	20 points