Encoding and Decoding Top-Secret Messages

Grades 5–8

8 sessions: 1 - 1.5 hours each

Informational, Narrative, STEM

Projects

Code Your Story

Julius Panoriñgan, 826LA

1. Spies and Algorithms: The Ultimate Dream Team

2. Encoding and Decoding Top-Secret Messages

3. Pixels as Building Blocks

4. Deconstruction and Reconstruction

5. Making Things Functional

6. Intro to Games

7. Choosing Adventures

8. Winning Instructions

This project offers an exploration into computer science and coding. Students will learn how a knowledge of coding can make them stronger writers.

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SESSION 2 OF 8

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Encoding and Decoding Top-Secret Messages

Spies will learn the basics of encoding and decoding messages following several examples. They will write their own codes and decode their classmates’ codes while working off of a narrative prompt.

What Your Students Will Learn

Student spies will learn to encode and decode both classic codes and other student’s codes. This work will serve the larger spy report narrative they’re writing.

What Your Students Will Produce

Students will write an informational spy report, complete with a steganographic message hidden within for their readers to find.

What You Will Need

Visible prompts. Either:

A projector and computer with projected “Session 2 Slides“; OR
- Printed or written prompts from slide deck so all students can see
“Code Your Story: Classic Codes”—1 copy per student
Lined paper

Before You Start

Make prompts visible (see “You Will Need”)

This lesson introduces programming-related concepts. If you are not already familiar with these ideas, read the list below before beginning the lesson:

Cipher: a code that scrambles a message for secrecy
Substitution cipher: a family of codes, where each original symbol is substituted for another symbol that needs to be worked out
Transposition cipher: a cipher where the letters are scrambled
Steganography: the practice of hiding a message “in plain sight”