Roll a Story Creative Writing with Dice

Students can get creative making stories with given story elements!

In this packet, students will:

• Choose characters, settings, problems, and solutions by rolling dice
• Create their own examples of story elements (optional)
• Practice orally telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end
• Write stories based on the story elements they have chosen, and illustrate

What’s included?

-   1 ready-to-play game board.

• The fields of characters, settings, problems, and solutions are already filled out for students to begin playing straight away.

-   1 blank game board.

• Students can individually/in pairs/in groups/as a class create a game board with their own imagined characters, settings, problems, and solutions.

-   2 different kinds of writing paper.

• There is a 1-page version with lines and space to draw a picture, and a 2-page version with lines and space to draw two pictures. 
• There are watermarks on the writing papers to remind students to include a beginning, middle, and end when writing their stories.

How do I prepare?

• Have your students play with their writing partners, or arrange them in pairs. Print out one game board per partnership.
• Provide one die per game board for students to roll.
• Print out enough writing paper for each student or pair, depending on if you want your students to write individually or collaboratively. There are 2 types of writing paper, so you can differentiate.

How do I use this resource?

• With the ready-to-use game board:
  • Students will roll the die 5 times in order to get 2 characters, 1 setting, 1 problem, and 1 solution. 
    • With each roll, they read off the main characters, setting, problem, and solution that match the number they have rolled.
    • If writing a joint story, students will come up with their story together orally first, trying to creatively incorporate the story elements they have rolled.
    • After deciding what happens at the beginning, middle, and end of their story, the students can take turns writing it down, and illustrating.
    • If writing individually, have the students orally share their stories with their partners first to help them get their ideas out.
    • After including the story elements into a beginning, middle, and end, they can write down their story, and illustrate.

• With the blank game board:
  • Students first think of their own characters, settings, problems, and solutions. These can be fantastical in nature, and can often get quite silly!
  • Then, students follow the same directions as above with the ready-to-use game board to play. (For variation, you can also have students switch game boards with each other.)

• TIP: Let the students share their stories afterwards. Some options are: reading it out loud to the class/another group, displaying it on a bulletin board, or making it a part of the classroom library.