After reading the Christel and Sullivan chapters that talked about using media and film in the classroom I am really excited to try out some of the great ideas mentioned.
I met with my cooperating teacher a couple weeks ago and found out I am going to be teaching Romeo and Juliet. In the readings I saw one lesson plan that had students create movie trailers around a particular theme of Romeo and Juliet. I really like the lesson plan outlined in the reading. Students look for quotes that pertain to their assigned theme and use imovie to add still images, live footage, music and other special effects to enhance the quotes they pick. Students then construct a “movie trailer.”
What I like most about this lesson is how the teacher planned to teach students how to use the technology they would be using. Instead of showing students how to do everything –upload images, videos, music, add transitions, etc –the teacher taught students how to do one thing each day. Day one was importing still images; day two was importing videos, and so on. This is a great way to keep students on track and also is a way to not overwhelm them. Since I am teaching Romeo and Juliet I’m looking for interesting lesson plans that engage students and I believe this would be a fun engaging project for students. This project would also support a constructivist learning environment. Students will be working in groups and coming to their own understandings of quotes and messages related to their theme.
There are so many other ways to use film in the classroom that excite me. Although the readings did not mention any lesson plans having to do with documentaries, I am so excited to teach them some day. For my final project in this class, Meredith and I are in the process of lesson planning a unit on documentaries. We found 7 types of documentaries and plan to teach one type each day, let students play around and create something using each type, consider exactly what a documentary is, who they are made by, their message or agenda, and so forth. Finally students will be creating their own documentary using imovie as a final project.
Students will need to write a 2 page paper addressing message, audience, type of documentary, and so on. This project is a way for students to think critically about what they are viewing, who they are getting information from, and why authors use the techniques they do.
I would also love to look at film adaptations and video poetry as well. I also read a lesson plan about teaching graphic novels, one being Art Speigelman’s Maus. I just recently read this book and one of my colleagues did a technology presentation with this novel using VoiceThread to analyze the graphic novels. Students were able to comment on their assigned theme and then listen to everyone’s comments—which included many themes. VoiceThread is a very effective tool for analyzing and commenting on images, and it worked very well with selected pages from Maus.
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Hey Lindsey--
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of doing an iMovie trailer around a certain theme; I've also thought about the possibility of doing a trailer around a character. Either way, like you said, I think this would be a great way for students to show what they have learning about a theme and how they see it tracing throughout the book. What I especially love is your idea that instruction could span several days. I think you are right that going slow with instruction would help to not overwhelm studetns. Additionally? I think it would help not to overwhelm me as the teacher! I would be far more likely to actually use iMovie (or any technology, for that matter) in my classroom if I felt like instruction could be completed in not-so-overwhelming do-able parts. So thank you for this idea!
Also, excited to see what you and Meredith do for your final project. I would have never thought to do lessons revolving around documentaries until Rick's class, so I am eager to see your ideas. I think, like you say, documentaries are an excellent medium for getting students to think about author intent, bias, audience, editing, etc.