Challenge C: OER Prototype
Challenge C: OER
November 20, 2025
Authors: Isaac Clements, Emily Morrow & Hanna White
Project Introduction:
As a group, Emily, Hanna and I are creating this project to teach elementary students about story structure. Since Covid, we have noticed big discrepancies in students’ reading and writing abilities and as aspiring teachers, we wanted to create a resource that would support students in the classroom. Our goal is to provide students with the tools and guidance to be able to understand how a story is made and comes together. We also see this project as an opportunity for us to explore different OER resources and to design developmentally appropriate materials that make learning accessible and enjoyable.
___________________________________________________________________________
Understand
Describe the challenge
The purpose of the Open Education Resource is to help elementary students understand the different elements of a story, including the beginning, middle and end and how to create an engaging and logical story. By exploring story structure, learners will gain confidence in their ability to organize ideas and express themselves through story writing.
Context and audience
The demographic that the OER is targeting is elementary school students. This is a complex demographic with a range of learning abilities. The students in an elementary classroom are young and therefore easily distractible. A goal of any educator is to keep the students engaged with the topic at hand including managing their desire to be social and engage with classmates. Elementary students are also generally interested in play. They want to engage in things that are easy to them and bring them joy. This can be challenging to accomplish and why we hope to create a resource that considers these things and creates an engaging set of materials.
Another thing about elementary students is that they have not been in the school system for a long time. That’s to say, they are still learning how to learn. So basic tools that guide them through the process step-by-step are crucial at this point in their education. They are also still learning a lot of foundational knowledge. This means creating a foundational and slow approach to learning will be key to their success. Building a strong understanding of basic content before engaging in complex topics builds confidence and lowers the cognitive load required by students.
Young children likely have had limited access to technological tools such as computers, phones, and iPads. While this is dramatically changing, it is best to assume when creating a learning tool that there is minimal understanding of how to use technology. Keeping this in mind, this demographic likely requires a basic layout that is easy to navigate and process to be able to engage with the content at their highest level. This might include using large fonts, simple colours, and minimal distractions such as multiple tabs or hyperlinks.
This OER is meant for students who are reviewing class material outside of class time. They could be visiting the site as a review tool to assist in their understanding with what was taught in class. This group of students is likely new to the concept of homework so to create an engaging and fun site for learning and solidifying knowledge will show students that homework can be fun and interesting.
POV statement:
- Elementary students who are struggling with reading and writing due to learning disruptions from Covid need engaging, interactive and age-appropriate resources that help them understand how stories are structured so they can strengthen their literacy skills and enjoy the process of learning to read and write.
Learning objectives
- Elementary students will be able to solidify knowledge about story formatting.
- Elementary students will be able to show an understanding of the different parts of the story.
Sub-objectives
- Students will gain confidence in navigating online materials.
- Students will begin learning how to ‘study’.
- Students will enjoy working on school work outside of school time.
Plan (Ideate, Sketch, Elaborate)
Ideation
For this project, we started by creating a shared Google Doc and made a list of possible ideas, including how AI is used in everyday life, how to study smarter not harder and effective email and professional writing. From these ideas, we all liked the topic of professional writing, but wanted to connect it to education so that it could act as a potential classroom resource in the future. As we narrowed our idea, a group member mentioned an English Language Arts unit plan that they had created to teach story writing to elementary students. With this in mind, we shifted our focus to story writing structure. We looked through various lesson plans to find one that we could adapt to add Open Educational Resources. As a group, we discussed whether to focus on story elements like the characters, setting or plot structure and after going back and forth we eventually decided to focus on the beginning, middle and end. The plot structure encompasses many different elements of story writing including characters, conflict, setting, resolution, while providing a clear scaffolded approach for elementary students. We connected this idea to the AI generation and realized that older elementary and middle school students are now growing up in a society where AI is normalized and they may not learn the proper writing mechanics and how to create a story. With Covid there has been a decline in students literacy skills; therefore, we saw an importance for this project.
Promising prototypes
Overall, our most promising prototypes were unit plan materials that were adapted to help teach story structure (beginning, middle and end) to elementary students. These prototypes combined interactive Open Education Resources like Google Slides and Canva to make the contents of writing engaging and educate students about how to write a well constructed story.
Storyboard
Story Arc: A Breakdown
What is a story arc?
A story arc is the way a story moves from the beginning, to the middle and to the end. It shows the changes and problems that the characters go through before finding a way to fix all of the issues, leading to the resolution.
Beginning
At the beginning of the story, the focus is on introducing who the story is about, where it takes place and when it happens. This is called the characters and setting. The purpose of the beginning is to help us understand what kind of story we are making, if it is funny, scary, exciting or maybe even a combination of these. We also get an idea of the main problem that the characters face. The overall goal is to give the reader a look into the ideas of our story.
When I write a story, I like to use the word “First” to show what happens at the very start. For example, “First, there was a princess that moved into a big castle in Victoria in August”. This gives the reader an idea of the characters and the setting in one sentence. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to think of ideas for the setting, characters and problem, so I have given a template where you get to let a dice decide the different parts of your story, it is called “Roll a Story”. You also get a story map so you can draw and write about the characters that you choose.
Middle
Here we are in the middle! The middle of a story is jam packed! Think about your daily life: usually the time that you do the most activity is during the middle of the day. Stories are the same way. The middle of the story builds off the beginning; we already know the characters and where we are, now we get to know what happens. The middle is usually where the big problem or conflict happens. This is called ‘The Climax’ and it almost always involves the main character. We don’t know how it is going to be resolved yet (that’s for the end of the story), but we get to see who is involved in the problem and think about why they are involved and what they might do about it.
End
The end of a story is where everything comes together and feels complete. This is the part where the problem or conflict from the middle finally gets solved or explained, and we finally see what happens to the characters. This part is called the resolution! The characters might learn something new, fix a mistake, or finally reach their goal.
When you’re writing your ending, you should think about what your character has learned or overcome since the beginning. The ending should make sense with everything that happened throughout the story and help it feel finished. You will know your story is complete when all the parts connect and everything makes sense from beginning to end. A good ending ties everything together and should leave the reader feeling like the story ended just the way it should.
My Worksheet:
Short conclusion
Now that you have learned about all three parts of a story (The beginning, middle, and end). You can see how they all work together to make a story interesting and complete. The beginning introduces your characters and setting, the middle brings in the problem or excitement, and the end ties everything together and shows how everything gets solved.
Challenge: Draw your own story arc! Plan out a story and show what happens in the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Show how your characters change or grow from start to finish.
Principles Applied
- Segmenting Principle: We decided to break our lesson into three clear parts, the beginning, middle, and end of a story that way students can learn step by step instead of all at once.
- Modality Principle: Our project uses both visuals (like Slides and Canva graphics) and short written explanations to keep students interested and help them to better understand in different ways.
- Signalling Principle: We want to highlight key ideas like the beginning, middle and end of a story so students can recognize what the main ideas are.
- Personalization Principle: We will be using a friendly tone when writing so that way the information is easy to understand while still being fun and approachable for younger students.
- Coherence Principle: Keeping our website and information simple and focused on the key ideas helps students better understand a story structure that way nothing distracts them.
References:
Night Zookeeper. (2024). Story Structure. Night Zookeeper. Retrieved November 4, 2025, from https://www.nightzookeeper.com/worksheets/story-writing/structure
Donovan, L. (2024). Story Structure for Kids: a Step-by-Step Guide. BookBildr for Education. Retrieved November 4, 2025, from https://edu.bookbildr.com/story-structure-for-kids-a-step-by-step-guide-for-teachers-and-students/
Granchelli, Adrian. (2025). Models of active learning EDCI337. Educational Technology UVic. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/10/19/models-of-active-learning/
Granchelli, Adrian. (2025). Theories of multimedia learning EDCI 337. Educational technology Uvic. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/09/05/theories-of-multimedia-learning/
Totallyjamie. (n.d.). Retro magical fairytale kingdom story book [Vector illustration]. Dreamstime.