Doris Qu
Dr. Doris (Xiaoyuan) Qu teaches 6th grade Mandarin and Social Studies at Sierra Madre Middle School (Pasadena Unified School District) in Sierra Madre, California. With three classes of about 65 students spanning a wide range of Mandarin proficiency, from basic to advanced, Doris integrates language learning with historical studies of ancient civilizations. For the past five years, Doris has used the StoryJumper book publishing project as a central part of her instruction, sparking student motivation and deepening their engagement.
"StoryJumper has noticeably increased my students' motivation. Knowing their writing would become a real hardcover book encouraged them to take feedback more seriously, revise their work thoughtfully, and create something they were truly proud of."
The Challenge
Getting students invested in writing projects was an ongoing challenge. Doris noticed that after submitting writing assignments and receiving feedback, students were reluctant to revise their work. So, valuable opportunities for learning and language improvement were often missed. With a packed curriculum, she also needed projects that wouldn’t take up too much class time.
Hardcover Book Publishing as a Catalyst
To address both engagement and time constraints, Doris turned to StoryJumper. She asked her students to create Mandarin books that demonstrated their understanding of an ancient civilization (like ancient Israel) while practicing their Mandarin. Regardless of their proficiency level, all students were expected to publish hardcover books, with differentiated expectations for sentence complexity and length. The tangible goal of publishing helped students take ownership of the process, accept feedback, and revise their writing with purpose.
Time-Efficient Solution
Doris was able to run the project efficiently without sacrificing instructional time. She introduced StoryJumper in a single class period, then had students collaborate in pairs or trios to work on their books independently outside of class. For those who needed extra support, she offered optional after-school sessions.
Illustrations were created either directly in StoryJumper or designed in Canva and uploaded to StoryJumper. To assess speaking fluency, Doris asked her students to record their voice narration into their books, eliminating the need for in-class presentations while still meeting oral language objectives.
Results
Before adopting StoryJumper, Doris had tried other digital writing platforms but found that they didn’t inspire students to revise or elevate their work. But with the StoryJumper book publishing project that attitude changed. Her students embraced the editing process and took pride in their finished hardcover / paperback books. Families were thrilled, especially younger siblings who now look forward to creating their own books in Doris’ class in the future.
Funding
Through a grant from the district’s education foundation, each student in the groups whose work met the required standards received their own hardcover or paperback copy of their book. In the upcoming school year, Doris not only plans to apply for a school district grant, but she also plans to secure additional grant funding from her city to provide more hardcover copies for her class library.
Looking Ahead
Doris plans to streamline the student setup process next school year using StoryJumper’s integration with Clever and plans to expand her class library of StoryJumper books, giving future students inspiring examples to learn from.
