This review of Rory's Story Cubes covers two products: the physical box, and the iPhone app - click here for our series of apps useful for English teaching and learning.
The idea is simple: nine 6-sided dice with, instead of numbers, icons/images on each face. As the packaging states "9 cubes, 54 images, 10,000,000+ combos, infinite stories." Some of the images are: a magnet, a speech bubble, a flower, a lock, a bee... The instructions are very simple - create a story using all of the images. One of those ideas: why did no-one think of this before?
The age recommendation on the packet of is "6+". But this is in fact a brilliant idea for secondary school classes of any age, too. I've used it recently for classes to think about 'the shape of a story' (a useful short talk by the novelist Kurt Vonnegut is at the bottom of this post: show this first as a way of introducing the concept). Divide your class into three: the first group provides the set-up by choosing the first three cubes and linking them (starting, of course, 'Once upon a time); then the second group takes over with three more cubes covering the middle development, and the final group has to provide the resolution with the last three cubes. [Another tip: in class, use a visualiser/document camera and zoom in to project the cubes large-scale on the screen.]
This is a simple idea for a really effective class, particularly in working out and arguing about the nuts and bolts of a narrative arc. One example: Leaving Cert candidates can learn a lot about Vision and Viewpoint when they get to the final three cubes and decide on the nature of a resolution. They can also be inventive when developing metaphors (A magnet: the character is drawn to something. A bee: a character suffers pain, or a realisation). It's also just great fun.
The app (right) costs a mere €1.59 on the iTunes Store. You shake your phone to roll the 'dice' (the phone makes a pleasingly convincing chunky sound doing this). You can move the dice around on the screen, and particular rolls can be locked.
Highly recommended.
JMG
Term ends today, and classes resume on Wednesday 4th May. Our Leaving Cert pupils will be busy preparing for their exams over the next three weeks, so this is a re-posting of helpful Hamlet resources. Again, the quotation auto-test is at the bottom.
