We just finished a book about pirates. My reading group struggled with the book - the vocabulary was tough, but the storyline was cute and engaging. I work with four other English teachers in the fifth grade - One came dressed as a pirate. One made cupcakes with pirate character flags she stuck in the top. One bought fancy cupcake.
They all planned parties.
I didn't. I usually don't do parties or free time. I don't know - I think its my obsession with not wasting a minute.
My students had trouble with the book and the big picture. So Thursday I broke them up into pairs and assigned them each to a story part - 9 parts in total - and write a short paragraph about their part.
Friday, I assigned a cameraman, editor, second cameraman, and I had posed questions to the group - all had to respond on a piece of paper or document, and I chose best answers to each question.
So the film when like this:
Opening music and pan of pirate ship (I had made it, cut it out, and eve added billowing sails). The ship was populated with my student's faces - they had all done the "Make me a Pirate" app. The next scene was the story plot chart and a series of clips showing the pictures students had drawn with their voiceovers explaining the scene. The end was the cameraman asking 3-5 students in a group: What was your favorite part? What do you think the next book will be about? and What questions do you have for the author?
For the concluding bit - I lined the kids up on the wall - the ones that hadn't had a chance to share - and asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?' (The main character - all she wanted to be, her life dream, was a pirate).
After class, I edit the audio levels and put titles to identify students - and share the 8 1/2 minute movie with the students and parents.
Much more lasting than cupcakes.
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