Multimodal Project:

Identity through Narrative Writing

Katherine Hallford

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

December 3rd , 2018

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For my multimodal project, I decided to explore identity through narrative writing. One

of the most pressing issues with my fifth grade students is finding who they are in the world.

While they are still small, they have big ideas and big feelings about the world around them and

where they belong. I want my students to feel confident and secure when they leave my

classroom and enter into middle school and beyond, making one of the more difficult periods of

their adolescence a bit easier than it will be if they are insecure.

I left this project as a more open-ended project intentionally, partially inspired by the

multimodal project itself. I made various changes throughout the semester when planning my

project but am happy to see where I’ve landed. I wanted to take this into the classroom and

utilize it as a project this year, but my narrative unit came to a close in the midst of my action

research project for a different class, and we needed to move on. My unit plan is a one-week

culminating project on narrative writing and/or poetry (I cover both during my narrative units) to

allow students to explore their identity and self-expression through writing. During this unit,

students will create identity webs, decide on how they want to create their narratives, and let

them explore and publish through storybird.com. This will allow them to practice varying

strategies they’ve learned throughout the unit. These strategies include utilizing graphic

organizers to plan their thoughts, using templates to create poetry, and utilizing their skills with

descriptive language and narrative writing.

The first step to the project is for students to create an identity web through

wordart.com/create. In their identity web, I will have them include a variety of things. First, their

name, then 5-10 words that they feel define them. We will focus on descriptors and character
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traits to maximize their word cloud being about who they are, not just what they love. As an

example, I created my own word cloud to show students.

After students create their identity word clouds, I want to provide them with any options

they can consider to explore their identity. However, to give some structure to the project, I will

spend some time providing options and templates to further their options and stretch their

creativity. The first option is an “I Am” poem. Using the outline provided by

ReadWriteThink.org, I will show students how creating a poem in this structure will showcase

their thoughts, feelings, and personality in a unique way. This is the format I chose to publish my

multimodal example in and will show my students that example as a reference.

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Figure 1 via readwritethink.org

The second example I would provide my students with is the “Best Part of Me” project. I

did this project with my first year of students (and sadly lost photos of the finished projects!) and

they were a phenomenal exercise in self-expression and identity. I will read The Best Part of Me

by Wendy Ewald and give students the option of creating their own bit of prose. While I don’t

have the photos of the original finished projects, I do have some of the images students created

of their best parts. This image is one of those my students decided were the best part of them.
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Another option for my students would be to write either an autobiographical picture book

or personal narrative and publishing it via storybird.com. This is an option for students who are

more interested in lengthy writing or are more comfortable with traditional writing activities.

With all options, students will publish on storybird.com, a website that allows students to create

poems, chapter books, and picture books for free. Students are able to utilize hundreds of images

to enhance their writing as well.

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References

Ewald, W. (2011). The best part of me children talk about their bodies in pictures and words.

Brantford, Ont.: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library.

Hallford, K. (n.d.). I am. by khallford1 on Storybird. Retrieved from

https://storybird.com/books/8gywct8mpm/?token=5djgpayd67

Word Cloud Art Creator. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2018, from https://wordart.com/

Writing an I Am poem. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson391/I-am-poem.pdf