Student curriculum

Start an Untold Stories Project

Five phases that take students from a museum object to a finished, evidence-based, AI-assisted historical artefact — and end by answering for it. Use the canvasses in your classroom; copy the prompts straight into your AI tool.

Audience · Secondary school, ages 14–16Format · Group work, 2–4 studentsTotal time · ~7½ hours across 5 phases

Which mode is this? Bootcamp / museum mode

These pages are the bootcamp / museum-mode programme: an intensive project (a workshop week, a museum collaboration, a project day series) where each team works its own object and the finished stories are compared as an assembled set.

Running Untold Stories inside your own year programme — one lesson a week, anchored in a topic you already teach, with the textbook as the account being questioned? That is classroom mode: an eight-week curriculum built on the same method. It is being authored now and will appear here for cohort 2 (from 1 October 2026).

Running the earlier materials with a class right now? The previous version is kept at the v1 archive.

The six moves of the inquiry

Underneath the five phases sits one inquiry cycle with six stages. The questions never change — only what you point them at:

Stage	The move	Where it lives
EXPLORE	Examine the object, find the silence, name the missing person.	Phase 1
VALIDATE	Turn sources into evidence. Label every claim.	Phase 2
COMPARE	Set accounts against each other — and finish with a claim.	Phase 3, step 1
DRAFT	Choose a medium, storyboard, "Then, Not Now".	Phase 3
CREATE	Build the artefact, evidence trail attached.	Phase 4
REFLECT	Exchange stories, face the Day One image, audit the AI.	Phase 5

Start here

Each phase below has its own canvas — a one-page worksheet students follow in class. The web pages below are the same canvasses, written out in detail, with every prompt students need to copy/paste.

Phase 1

EXPLORE

Pick a museum object, investigate it, ask whose story is missing, and generate a first AI character image.

~60 minFrom Object to Character

Phase 2

VALIDATE

Build an evidence foundation around your character (object, context, person), then choose a strong story angle.

~60 minEvidence and Story Angle

Phase 3

DRAFT

Set your recovered perspective against the account you were given — and finish with a claim. Then pick a medium and storyboard it.

~60 minCompare, Pick a Format, Storyboard

Phase 4

CREATE

Anchor character & style from evidence, build one scene, save the recipe, scale to the rest, polish and publish.

~240 minBuild Your Story

Phase 5

REFLECT

Set finished stories against each other, put the Day One image next to the evidence-based one, and answer for your AI use.

~45 minExchange, Two Portraits, AI Audit

Phase 4 has three pathways

Once students have an evidence-rich character and a chosen story angle, they pick the medium that best serves that story.

🎬

A Reel

A 5-8 second video sequence with a character voice. Vlog or documentary framing.

~4 hours · 4 steps

📓

A Comic Book

Panel-by-panel comic with a chosen art style and lettered speech bubbles.

~2h 15min · 4 steps

🎮

A Game / Simulation

A small interactive web game where the audience faces your character's decision.

~2h 30min · 4 steps

How to use these docs in your classroom

Print the canvas PDFs (A3 landscape works best) and hand one out per group.
Project these web pages on the classroom screen so students can copy/paste prompts.
Every prompt block has a one-click copy button. Encourage students to read the prompt before they paste.
The CHECK blocks (dark blue) are non-skippable. They're where students catch AI hallucinations and modern slips.