Flat stanley travel journal7/11/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() This project creates a sense of freedom of choice (the students focus on writing about things they like doing themselves and a sense of reality (the students actually have the opportunity to mail the letters and the paper dolls). The experiences he went through left their mark and were thoroughly recorded by the children who help him with the transformation. This is what teachers call an "authentic" literacy project, in that kids are inspired to write of their own passion and excitement about the project, and given the freedom to write about many things through the rubric of the Flat Stanley character.įlat Stanley goes through a steady and amazing transformation from a plain paper doll to a fully-dressed makeover of a genuine Romanian proudly wearing its traditional costume. Writing and learning becomes easier, flows naturally, and tends to be more creative. The sender and the recipient already have a mutual friend, Flat Stanley. Although similar to a pen-pal activity, Flat Stanley is actually much more enriching-students don't have to wonder where to begin or what to write about. The basic principle of The Flat Stanley Project is to connect your child, student or classroom with other children or classrooms participating in the Project by sending out "flat" visitors, created by the children, through the mail (or digitally, with The Flat Stanley app. Amusing stories written by students come to life around the flat figure, instilling life and personality into him. The dressing will be accompanied by a letter telling what Flat Stanley saw or did in that place, what the climate was like and some interesting things about the place. The person who receives it will ‘dress’ him up in clothes that reflect the local climate and/or activities people do there. The plain paper-doll cuts will “visit” different places. There are advantages that come with being flat: he can slide under doors, go inside sidewalk grates, and even fold himself up to fit into an envelope and me mailed for an exciting holiday. The story centers around a boy named Stanley who is accidentally squished “as flat as a pancake” when a bulletin board falls on him. The Project encompasses more than 6000 schools registered in 88 countries around the globe, and is included in the curriculum for more than 15% of elementary schools in the US. Today, the Flat Stanley Project is a uniquely multi-generational, global literacy activity that engages hundreds of thousands of children on a daily basis. Hubert invited other teachers to take part by "hosting" Flat Stanley visitors in their classrooms as they arrived in the mail, and encouraging students to keep their own Flat Stanley journals. Hubert had the brilliant idea of having children create their own Flat Stanley paper cutouts and mailing them to friends and family around the globe, in order to foster authentic literacy activities and make children write about Stanley's adventures. In 1994, Dale Hubert initiated the Flat Stanley Project in Ontario, Canada starting from Jeff Brown’s book Flat Stanley. ![]() The activities involved in letter and travel journal writing create a sense of belonging, of caring about the pen pal’s feelings, of bonding with the others. Writing letters and travel journals becomes an interesting task for the students due to the entire process of writing about things that are of interest to our students while taking photos and drawing pictures to make the letters more vivid. Flat Stanley becomes the messenger between two different cultures bridging the cultural gap. The Flat Stanley Project is an excellent example of what teachers can do to trigger young minds to think and write creatively. In project work students work as a team and the outcome of their work is a concrete product such as a travel journal, report, or diary. Project work involves multi-skill activities focusing on a topic of interest. Good language skills are required and the content of the project itself is of utmost importance. It brings not only personal involvement on the students’ part, but also decision-making on how they will do it. Project work exposes students to authentic language and authentic tasks, becoming learner-centered. Interest in project work and its integration into the teaching foreign language process have been increasingly growing among students and teachers alike. Contacting schools in other countries prompts writing and exchanging letters to pen pals, which gives an insight into children’ s lives, encouraging excellent social skills. The activities triggered by this project have led to bridging distant cultural gaps with students oversea. Teachers and students who have embarked upon it are competent, enthusiastic, and committed to exploring new techniques of broadening their English book horizons creating a more communicative learning environment.
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