When teaching, I have struggled to find resources that engage older students yet remain accessible.
I thought I would try and draft some of my own resources. I thought I would include different versions, multiple choice questions that can help check understanding and an easy to look up vocabulary checker using gifs, photos and sounds.
The idea for the story has evolved a little. I discussed it with DY and I think the baddie will now be a monster. It didn't sit well that the teachers might actually be normally bad. Making them a literal monster makes it nicely fictional. I also think there will be a semi-love interest. A fellow loner. Eats carrots by herself or something. Jack brings in carrots for her the next day and she's gone. Teachers dismissive - kids move schools all the time - but Jack sees something distinctly hers in the nasty teacher's room. Carrot girl has been eaten! Jack teams up with geek to confront the monster / find evidence etc. About to confront and maybe the teacher has disappeared / arrested / etc. Headteacher appreciates their help etc but also hint the headteacher might be peckish too...
I was also thinking about the decile level of the reading and thought maybe the reader can navigate to a harder version of the same story. So a series of pages which can be navigated horizontally through the story and veritically between easier and harder levels. Include multiple choice questions to check understanding on each page too.
I stuggled to find creative commons licence images for buttons etc yesterday. I could just make some on word, etc. And I think there is a website with free to use images. Might there be one for gifs too? I also want the images to be in WEBP or AVIF format.
To begin, I will draft 9 pages: 3 easy, 3 medium and 3 hard. Click here to see.
The idea worked. To improve, I want to fix the arrows in the same positions on each page. I also want to add a home button. I am not sure about the lexile level of the sentences I wrote. I will need to find a resource to clarify this. Or if lexiles are even the best gauge.
I have found this readability checker to use. There are other options. This one seems to be re-usable.
So... the story will be about Jack - misunderstood, etc - who hates school. Nasty Maths teacher - Mrs Jones - picks on him a lot. He finds out that she is up to something naughty. He isn't believed (Mum is too busy with the baby, the nice art teacher is kind but doesn't react). He needs evidence. Finds a pal in a geeky classmate who also doesn't trust Mrs Jones. Jack is braver and films Mrs Jones. Geeky friend helps him share it with the Headteacher. Mrs Jones is fired. Victory for Jack. Or is it... some sort of cliffhanger ending.
Some details to be ironed out for the story but that is secondary.
Problems to solve for me
My plan was to use HTML to display 'Jack', 'hated' and 'school' when the mouse hovered over the links. My intial research suggests it is a JavaScript idea. I will implement this later...
An alternative ideas was to display the text in an invisible table with buttons underneath that would enable an image / audio file of each work. Not sure how to make a table yet in HTML. I have some ideas for audio to try out using HTML too.