Long Story Short is a fun game that can be used as a tool to improve listening comprehension, social skills, and the ability to understand and express ideas. In this game, the storyteller chooses a topic from story starter cards, and tells a true or false story to the other players. The other players must decide if the story is true or false. Next they make the “long story short” by creating a headline, text, tweet, or illustration on a dry erase board. This game can be a great way for an adult to help students with language weaknesses since players must tell a cohesive story or listen to a story, remember details, and then summarize the main points but all in a fun way. Alternatively, students strong in these skills can play together and have an enjoyable time while strengthening these skills.

• Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
• Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
• Presents educational concepts accurately
• Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
• Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
• Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
• Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

• Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
• Visually appealing to children in the target age range
• Adults would enjoy playing with a child
• For electronic games, gives positive or encouraging feedback
• Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
• Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

• Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
• Student should be able to use independently after first use
• Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
• Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
• Does not require excessive set-up time after first time use
• Can be fun as a single player game
• Multi-player game which fosters collaboration or cooperation
• Well-made for the cost
• For electronic games, can play without sound
• For electronic games, allows user to save work
• For electronic games, voice/sounds are appealing and pronounces words properly
• Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
• Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
• Overall - Easy to use

• Attention
• Requires a disproportionate amount of writing
• Fine Motor Skills
• Requires a disproportionate amount of writing
• Self-regulation
• Multi-player activity that requires cooperation or has potential for disagreements
• Multi-player activity with a clear 'winner' and 'loser'
• Visual Discrimination
• Requires scanning in multiple places for words, objects or numbers
• Words used during activity can be too small or difficult to read

Long Story Short is a hit party game that mixes social media with the time-tested fun of storytelling. Each round, the Storyteller shares an experience or story with the group using the fun story starters. The storyteller tells a story that is either true or false. Players then make the long story short by creating a headline, drawing a picture, writing a text, or crafting a tweet for the story told. Players compete for the best short story. Long Story Short will have everyone ROTFL for hours. LOL! #fungame