Story Quest is a four-episode mini-podcast series for the classroom by the award-winning Story Pirates. It’s a wildly engaging way to teach the building blocks of narrative writing. Story Quest is granted for free to schools who complete a simple application to provide demographic information, school details, and why this will be meaningful for the students who will be participating. This exciting and hilarious adventure through outer space engages elementary-aged students to help Captain Eric on a strange mission fraught with peril–and an unexpected number of Space Mice. The only condition to participate is that each student must write a completely original story for us to read and respond to with words of encouragement. The program culminates when Captain Eric himself records a final, personalized message for each and every participating classroom that names the hard work and creativity of specific writers, celebrating dozens of kids’ creative ideas.
We intend to achieve the following outcomes for the 25-26 school year:
Once a week for four weeks, classroom teachers play a hilarious new episode that inspires, entertains and teaches elements of creative writing, all in under 10 minutes. Each episode is accompanied by printable graphic organizers for students to apply what they’ve learned to their own original stories, as well as tools for teachers to help guide their students. At the end of four weeks, teachers submit their students’ work to the Story Pirates.
Students’ stories are returned 6-8 weeks later with personalized notes of encouragement for every single author, along with a mind-blowing, surprise final audio message that is customized for each classroom!
Some teachers have requested more sequential programming or more opportunities for Spanish-language versions, which we see as opportunities rather than challenges that we are looking forward to solving with pilots of a Level Two and Story Quest en Español schedule for next spring.
In the last year, 16 participating schools from around the country brought in 72 participating classrooms, and from them nearly 1,000 stories were received. Of the participating students, 58.1% live below the poverty line and 17% are English Language Learners. They are 10% Asian/Pacific Islander, 17% African American/Black, 39% Latinx, 2% Native American, and 22% Caucasian.
A recent evaluation found that 94% of participating students completed writing their own original story and 100% of participating teachers found that students were excited to participate and actively engaged in the lessons. One teacher remarked "Story Quest motivated my students more than the typical writing lessons I normally plan. They were able to write better stories because the lessons were broken down and very focused."
