Apps With Curriculum’s
Educational App Review
of
Brush of Truth
by Julie Laviolette
Summary: Winner of Creative Child’s Magazine 2012 Media of the Year
Award, Author Julie Landry Laviolette is the mom of two tweens and is a
longtime journalist. Story Bayou (a play on “Story By You”) engages students
in grades 3-6 in a literary journey by allowing kids to choose how the action
proceeds during critical points in each story. One path will lead in one
direction; the other path will lead to something entirely new. Multiple paths
and endings bring suspense to the stories, always with the option of returning
to the beginning and starting anew. The stories provide a unique perspective
by being written in the second person point-of-view, which puts the reader in
the driver’s seat, being cast as the main character. The book app introduces a
medieval sorcerer’s magic paintbrush that is discovered in modern time by
two tweens. With 65 decision points and 20 possible endings, Brush of Truth
leads the kids on many adventures, including under the sea, in a floating
graveyard, and inside sand castles as they discover its powers.
As an educator, I like that the app is similar to an eBook with the added bonus
of being a book app that allows students to switch the plot and produce
various endings. It fosters student creativity and the opportunity for multiple
rereads.
Educational Excellence:
Brush of Truth’s free curriculum provides instruction in three important
areas: Sentence Structure, Creative Writing, and Project-Based Learning.
The Sentence Structure activity empowers students with a set of options for
each type of Compound and Complex Sentence, providing a memorization
process that promotes retention. The Creative Writing activity incorporates
technology with creativity and presentation; the Project-Based Learning
promotes 21st Century Learning Skills by allowing students to communicate,
collaborate, critically think, and create.
The Sentence Structure activity deals with an area that literacy teachers
struggle with daily: how to teach Compound and Complex Sentences and have
students master the composition of these sentence structures. The Smarty
Activity for Compound Sentences includes an instructional PowerPoint and
has the students use the free technological app Scribble Press to imitate a story
with multiple ending choices as seen in Brush of Truth. In addition, students
provide illustrations for their stories via the app. To enforce the practice of
writing Compound Sentences correctly, students then highlight and label the
three options for writing Compound Sentences in their narratives. There are
also practice worksheets for reinforcement. The Smarty Activity for Complex
Sentences also includes an instructional PowerPoint and a worksheet that has
them take the previously written Compound Sentences and rewrite them as
Complex Sentences. Students then return to the narrative that they wrote for
Compound Sentences and check it for Complex Sentences, making corrections
as needed; they also highlight and label the two options for writing Complex
Sentences. As they present their narratives to the class, their peers critique
each student’s labeled sentence structures.
The Creative Writing activity involves choosing and researching a creature
found in the book app Brush of Truth. Using the information found in the
research, students turn the creature into a character, creating its personality,
physical traits, and lifestyle. Their Creative Writing involves this character
taking an adventure. After revisions, they place the story in a free
technological app such as Notebook+ Free; they include a photograph of the
creature, and they audio record a reading of the narrative.
The Project-Based Learning unit presents the Driving Question: How can we,
as researchers of beach communities, write stories that show what it is like to
live in a beach community? Groups of 3-4 students choose a beach
community and complete a handout regarding what they already know about
the subject and what they need to learn; they then begin their research. Using
a free technological app such as Educreations, they create a group
presentation about their chosen beach community; the presentation includes
text, visuals, and an audible narration. They return to the original handout
and complete the final column: What I Learned. The unit encourages the
groups to share their presentations with grade level Language Arts and social
studies classes as well as placing it on the school’s website.
This P-BL unit adds an additional, optional activity of applying the
researched information to a Creative Writing Narrative written in the first
person point-of-view. It also provides Idea Starters for the narrative.
Creating a title and an illustration for the cover page, the narrative is typed in
the free technological app such as Notebook+ Free, and one member of the
group is selected to perform the audible narration. Sharing with other classes
and school sites is encouraged.
21st Century Skills in Project-Based Learning:
Collaboration - The Project-Based Learning provides opportunities for the
students to work in small groups to select needed research information and to
create and revise a narrative.
Communication – Communication is imperative since it is a group project;
students are given rules regarding group behavior and participation to
facilitate successful communication and ultimately, a successful presentation.
Critical Thinking – Students must consider their options for a beach
community and how to take a chosen sea creature and thereby create a
character who narrates a story – with all of its creative elements – in a first
person point-of-view narrative.
Creativity – Researching, creating, composing, and presenting within a
technological app sparks a student’s imagination and allows the student to
create and design.
Common Core Standards Alignment:
The Sentence Structure activity includes the following: planning, revising,
editing, and publishing narratives, using digital tools to produce, describing,
adding visual displays, and producing complete sentences.
The Creative Writing activity includes the following: determining main ideas,
writing narratives, producing and publishing, adding visuals, and
demonstrating a command of grammar and mechanics when writing and
speaking.
The Project-Based Learning includes the following: reading closely, writing
narratives, conducting short research, and speaking/presenting using digital
media and visuals.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Alignment:
The applications of the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy cover the chart, including
the following: describe, write, demonstrate, visualize, construct, apply,
examine, investigate, select, compose, design, and imagine.
Cross-Curricular Subjects:
This app integrates science and social studies/geography. Science includes the
research of sea creatures, and geography includes the research of beach
communities.
Technology Incorporated:
Projects are achieved through the technological apps Educreations, Scribble
Press, and Notebook+ Free.
*This curriculum review was free because Sascyn Publishing, Inc. designed its
curriculum. Its contents are accurate and without bias.