Taught the way it actually works

What it is

Before we plan a learning book, we sort each thing it has to teach by its shape: a cause and effect, steps a person carries out, a sequence that unfolds on its own, human motives and consequences, a craft visible in the writing, a habit of mind, or the parts of something and their arrangement. The shape decides how the story teaches it.

What it is for

A story that explains everything the same way teaches almost nothing. So a machine is taken apart while a character uses it, and the cause is named once they have felt it. Rounding is worked out loud, step by step, on a problem the plot genuinely has. A habit of mind is enacted again and again, including once where the first instinct is wrong and the habit catches it.

How to use it

1. Tap New Adventure and choose the Curriculum Journey or STEM Focus card on Topic, the first step along the top. That choice is the whole of it. The sorting happens on its own, and there is nothing to set.
2. Pick a school standard, or tap Your Topic and write what the story should teach in your own words. What you write in your own words is taught first.
3. Keep it to one thing you want understood rather than a list, because every concept costs real plot space.
4. Ask them, once they have finished, to explain the idea back to you. That is the only test of whether it was taught rather than mentioned.

What we suggest

Give one book one idea. A book asked to teach a whole term of standards gives each of them a mention, which is the failure this exists to avoid. When a topic you wrote in your own words under STEM Focus is too big to teach properly, we say so, show you the few the book will teach in depth, and let you swap them for the ones you care about. Everything else still appears on a learning map at the back. A school standard is already the right size, so Curriculum Journey is never asked.