Storybird is a creative writing platform for kids with 9 million members. The educational software is used in 800K classrooms worldwide.
As head of content at Storybird from 2014-2019, I wrote and produced online courses, writing guides, prompts, and challenges for young writers.
Storybird uses art to inspire storytelling. Writers can browse a library of 10,000 illustrations created by professional artists, and create picture books, poetry, and chapter books to publish online or in print.
Storybird had a highly engaged audience, but our research showed that members struggled most in two areas: deciding what to write and finishing their books. We created Challenges to help kids get started, and Badges to reward completion.
From 2015 to 2018, we increased user engagement by 233%, from 9 million to 30 million stories published on the platform.
The concept for Storybird Courses was "MasterClass for kids." We recruited and worked with subject matter experts to develop online creative writing classes targeted towards our core audience of tweens and teens.
Our goal was to inspire curiosity and boost creativity, so it was important to show a diverse range of writing styles and genres. The courses included song writing, graphic novels, YA fantasy, TV writing, and video game narrative design.
In addition to writing lesson materials, scripts, and interviews, I also managed a team of videographers, editors, and writers to produce and market the courses.
Storybird Prep brought classroom learning into the home. We partnered with YouTube creators/educators to produce language arts courses for elementary, middle, and high school students.
I worked with a team of veteran teachers and administrators to design the standards-based curriculum and develop lessons, worksheets, challenges, and assessment rubrics.
5th-6th Grade Skills Boost
This course covered all the essential language arts skills taught in 5th and 6th grade, including reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Media Literacy
This single-subject course taught high school students how to evaluate sources and avoid "fake news"— a timely lesson in 2018.
Prewriting
Geared toward younger writers, this beginner course helps kids get their ideas down on to the page with brainstorming tips and exercises.
How-to Guides: I wrote dozens of subject-specific guides on writing concepts ranging from character development to literary devices. Each lesson included a writing prompt challenge to help kids master the concepts.
Story mapping worksheet: I partnered with an artist to design a worksheet for a lesson on narrative arcs and how to build a plot.
About Storybird: I wrote the script for this YouTube video giving parents and teachers an introduction to Storybird.
Summer Writing Club: This was a series of writing workshops for tweens. I wrote the content and recorded videos for YouTube.