Engage students with reading and creative writing using interactive stories

Try out an interactive story

Here is a short example authored in a free online tool called Twine to try.

See if you can find every passage of the story and explore all the locations and characters.  https://teacherscorner.folens.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lost-Dog-2.html

An interactive story, or branching narrative, is a story where the reader can choose how they navigate through it. The reader will be presented with critical choices at various points. The reader’s choice may be informed by what they have understood from before or the writer could exploit a random element such as a roll of a die to decide the outcome of a key situation for the reader. The key thing is the reader is very much an active participant in the story.   

I must admit, my own passion for reading as a child was fuelled by ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. I still treasure my collection and when I became a teacher, they were always a hit in my class as an alternative to the usual shared story books as the students would engage with discussing and debating the choices as they arose – a great demonstration of the class’s comprehension and attention to the text!  

While video games and role-playing games have taken over from printed adventure books, the critical elements of active engagement and player agency remain in the digital realm. 

Click Next page for ideas on getting started with interactive stories.