Not Your Momma's Book Report: Filming “Book Trailers” Pt. 1
My students need portable digital video recorders to use in small groups.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Brinker's classroom raised $501
This project is fully funded
Making videos can provide the sort of intrinsically motivated alternative assessment that students crave. I teach 6th grade Language Arts at a Title I, publicly funded military academy in its first year offering middle school. The students come from a high need area (70% have free or reduced-price lunches), and they show the drive to succeed by having applied and having been accepted to this competitive program.
As a first year teacher in a first year program, I have very little of anything to offer my students in terms of physical resources. However, there are two computers in the classroom; that is enough computers for students to edit their videos in stations (two groups at a time).
The students need a class set (about 6 total) of easy-to-use video cameras to use in groups of 3-4 students each. With these cameras, students will work together to create a video demonstration of their comprehension of a text of their choice; in other words, they will create movie trailers, which are essentially plot summaries of the text's main points. This is a method of visualization, a reading strategy which "increases reading proficiency and has positive consequences for learning and metacognition," according to http://winclass.edublogs.org/2009/05/28/book-trailers/
Making movie trailers to extend literacy is an idea proven to work with great success in the middle school setting, because it encourages hands on, technology-driven social learning (see "At the Movies: Extending Literacy Learning with Movie Trailers" by Shelbie Witte, found in Classroom Notes Plus, NCTE, Volume 26, Number 4, April 2009).
Your help will give my students the resources they need to become their own masters of creation, breathing life into their reading by collaborating with their peers to realize texts in a powerful and personal new way.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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