The projectThe CurriculumWhat You GetWho It's ForPartnersSectionsStart an Untold Stories ProjectFor TeachersStart your Untold Story
Phase 5 · Create

Make the story your evidence allows you to tell

Choose a format that serves your interpretation. Build from the checked DRAFT, keep uncertainty visible and do not let production add unsupported history.

Duration · Depends on the chosen formatPathways · 4 · choose oneBring · Corrected DRAFT sheet + sources

Lesson resources

Video

CREATE walkthrough

AI lesson · Before you generate

Using AI critically and creatively

Video

AI lesson · Create, question and judge

  • Check the evidence. Generative AI produces text, images and other media from learned patterns. A convincing result can still contain invented details or stereotypes.
  • You remain the judge. Ask: What is missing? Which source supports this? Correct or remove details you cannot defend.
  • Give clear instructions. Start with your checked draft, sources and constraints. Test one scene or panel, then save the successful steps as a reusable recipe or skill.
  • Use resources thoughtfully. AI uses energy and computing resources. Prepare prompts, agree a limit on retries and consider a simpler format before generating more video.
1. Pick one pathway

Choose the medium that best communicates the claim you developed in COMPARE and checked in DRAFT. You do not complete every pathway.

🎬

A Reel

Best for personality-driven moments. Vlog or documentary framing, using short scenes and a character voice.

~4 hours · 4 steps · native-audio video
📓

A Comic Book

Best for sequence-driven stories. Choose an art style, build panel by panel and letter the speech bubbles last.

~2h 15min · 4 steps · 6–8 panels
🎮

A Game / Simulation

Best for stories that turn on a difficult choice. Build a small interactive experience around three evidence-based decisions.

~2h 30min · 4 steps · 3 real decisions
✏️

An Unplugged / Low-AI Story

Best when paper, writing, drawing, a live reading or simple recorded audio serves the story and your available tools.

Flexible time · paper, performance or ordinary audio
2. Keep the historical standard
  • Make the finished story from the corrected DRAFT sheet, not from memory or a new AI answer.
  • Keep the source beside each important claim as you produce.
  • Keep KNOW, THINK and DON’T KNOW visible in the wording.
  • If production introduces a new historical detail, verify it or remove it.
  • Apply the then-not-now, evidence and dignity checks before sharing.
Digital pathway preparation · Reel, comic or game

The three existing digital pathways use an evidence-based portrait and their own production recipes. This preparation does not apply to the unplugged route.

Generate the evidence-based portrait

Every period detail should trace to your checked evidence notes. A verified reference image may be attached. If FIND included a machine’s guess, do not use that first image as evidence or as the production reference.

Evidence-based portrait prompt · preserved from the digital pathways
Create a portrait of [CHARACTER NAME], a [age] [role] living in [time/place], connected to [museum object]. Build the person ONLY from this evidence list: [paste your Phase 2 evidence list — FACT and INFORMED GUESS lines only] PERIOD DETAILS (each one backed by an evidence line) - Clothing: [details — cite F/IG number] - Setting: [details — cite F/IG number] - Condition / age / bearing: [details — cite F/IG number] Where the evidence is silent, choose the plainest historically plausible option — do not invent drama. STYLE Realistic and historically plausible. Dignified, specific, not a stereotype. NOT ALLOWED Modern clothing, modern objects, fantasy elements, anything anachronistic for [TIME / PLACE].

Check it against the evidence

  • Clothing, tools and setting fit the time and place, with evidence for each important detail.
  • The person looks specific and dignified, not like a stereotype.
  • Nothing is anachronistic.
  • You can explain what is supported, inferred and still guessed by the image.
LOW-AI ROUTEA written reference can replace a portrait

Write a five-line description, with every line connected to evidence. It can guide a hand-drawn comic, script or paper game in the same way as an image reference.

Vocabulary used in the existing digital recipes

Some production templates use the earlier labels. Read ESTABLISHED as WE KNOW, INFERRED as WE THINK, and UNKNOWN as WE DON’T KNOW. Their F/IG evidence IDs refer to the source details recorded in CHECK and carried into DRAFT; an older “Phase 2 evidence list” label means those same checked notes. The production prompts and recipes remain available unchanged.

CHECKBefore entering your chosen pathway
  • You can state the main idea your audience should understand.
  • Your corrected DRAFT sheet and sources are beside you.
  • You chose a format because it serves the story and the tools/time available.
  • You know which uncertain details must remain qualified or unknown.