Rock Cycle Story/Cartoon Challenge
Be a rock, any rock, and tell your life story. You may write and illustrate your short story using a word processing and graphics program. You could also create a cartoon strip of your life story (using a graphics program or your own original artwork). You could also tell your life story through a Flash animation. You choose your format!
Steps to Creating Your Story:
1. Use this planning worksheet to help you to organize the words and images that will tell your story. You should also use these questions to help you create your story:
Did you start as magma? (igneous rock). Are you on the surface (lava), near the surface, or deep beneath it? Do you cool fast or slowly? Do you have crystals? What do you look like?
Or—Are you sedimentary rock? You are being broken into smaller pieces and carried away. What is this called? What is causing it? What is carrying you away? Where are you going? Where do you end up? You are surrounded by other rock fragments. Are they the same type and size? Are more piling up above you? You are now sedimentary rock. What changed you? What do you look like now?
Or—Are you changing? (metamorphic). What kind of rock are you at first? What changes must happen to you to turn you into metamorphic rock? Where will this change occur? How do you get there? What do you look like when you have changed?
2. For examples of metamorphic rocks, take a look at these:
schist gneiss
For examples of igneous rocks, take a look at these:
granite scoria pumice obsidian
For examples of sedimentary rocks, take a look at these:
sandstone limestone shale conglomerate gypsum
3. Turn in your draft/notes to be edited for completeness.
4. Write a draft of your story and sketch the diagrams/illustrations that will accompany your text.
5. Turn in your draft to be edited for accuracy and completeness.
6. Create your final product.
7. Evaluate your story:
Did you represent each stage of the rock cycle in order?
Did you use key vocabulary for each stage (metamorphic, sedimentary, igneous)?
Do you have a clear beginning, middle, and end?
Did you edit for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization?
Did you use transition words?
Did you use descriptive language (similes, alliteration, adjectives, adverbs, interjections)?
Did you use conjunctions in order to write different types of sentences?