BrianGriggs.com » digital booktalks http://briangriggs.com Tallest librarian in the world Tue, 15 May 2012 18:44:37 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Digital Booktalks – Movie Trailers http://briangriggs.com/2007/11/15/digital-booktalks-movie-trailers/ http://briangriggs.com/2007/11/15/digital-booktalks-movie-trailers/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:51:36 +0000 Brian http://briangriggs.com/2007/11/15/digital-booktalks-movie-trailers/ When I was teaching Language Arts I wanted my last student-created booktalk to be an exceptional one. (I didn’t want a simple summary (probably from the back of the book) book report).

We watched the Spider-Man 3 trailer, looking for theme and symbolism. We then looked at a trailer storyboard to find the same elements of literature.

Students had read a literature circle book as a group of 4 and now they were ready to create the movie trailer.

Trailers needed:

  1. 5 different scenes from the book
  2. 10 different camera shots
  3. an interweaving theme
  4. 3 examples of text
  5. a music soundtrack
  6. to be 30-60 seconds in length

I tell you nothing teaches precision in words like a 30-60 second limit. If they were under, they didn’t have enough content. Over, and they were boring.

These editing skills transferred later into their essays and narratives. (Woo!)

A week with iMovie and then we were ready for the HJHS film festival. At lunch we had standing room only in the library (my obsession was long-building) as most of the 8th grade student body watched everyone’s trailers on an iDVD.

When do you have students asking for a copy of their book report to show off?

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