As a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. When I finished a book, I'd go back and explore all the roads not taken until I'd read every single possible adventure and ending.
Today, I'm going to show you how you can create our own Choose Your Own Adventure stories with the help of Microsoft Copilot to make reading fun for yourself or your students, tutees, and kids. This is a great way to get young readers and learners to practice reading in any language—native or foreign.
Be sure to read my previous post on generating reading materials for students/tutees/kids to make sure the story comes in an appropriate level for them and for generative AI prompt tips to include certain vocabulary or grammatical concepts you want them to practice.
Tip #1 Write a Choose Your Own Adventure prompt
As with all generative AI tasks, it's important to be specific when telling Copilot how you want your story. Following is the prompt I used to generate the examples in my screenshots.
Please write a segment of an adventure story, around 600 words, about a 14-year-old boy name Bård and his dog Kaptein who are exploring in the forest. Please leave the segment open-ended and give the reader two options to choose what happens to Bård and Kaptein next.
Following is an example of the options Copilot gave me.
He had to make a choice. He could either:
- Go into the tunnel with Kaptein and look for the key.
- Stay in the chamber with Kaptein and try to open the box with the knife.
Sometimes Copilot will also give you the options as follow-up prompts that you can click to continue the story.
If Copilot doesn't give you those buttons, simply type the option you want in the prompt box and Copilot will continue the story. Or, if Copilot answers "I don't know what happened to..." when you click on the button, just type a prompt like:
Please continue the story with Bård and Kaptein going into the tunnel to look for the key.
Tip #2 Work in specific vocabulary and grammar
In my post on using Copilot to generate foreign language reading materials, I give examples of ways you can have Copilot work in certain vocabulary or grammar concepts your student/tutees/kids need to practice. You can do the same with the Choose Your Own Adventure story. Ask Copilot to write in a specific tense or include certain words.
Copilot often obliges, and if it leaves anything out like a vocab word, just ask it to regenerate the story with the missing word.
Please regenerate this story to include the word "kingly."
Tip #3 Ask Copilot for page numbers for a Choose Your Own Adventure ebook
If you want to turn your Choose Your Own Adventure story into an ebook, you can ask Copilot to include unique page numbers for each option.
Please write the beginning of an adventure story, about 300 words, about a young prince Alexander and his talking horse Bucephalus who go on a quest. Please leave the story open-ended and give the reader two options to choose what happens to Alexander and Bucephalus next, including sequential unique page numbers for each option.
Choose Your Own Adventure type stories are so good for teaching kids to love reading. I hope you found these tips helpful and have a lot of fun creating stories for yourself or your students, tutees, and kids. I'd love to see the stories you create using these tips. Feel free to share them with me on Twitter/X at @HelloCappuccino!
