Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

One activity I used to do with 5th and 6th grade students was to have them create movie-style posters to advertise novels that they read. They had to analyze tone and theme for the colors and images they selected. They also had to identify a short phrase or a few key words that would "grab" the audience, while remaining true to the theme of the story. Back in the olden days we used images cut from magazines - now with the web at our fingertips it's time to take this activity online!

Assignment: Book Trailers using Animoto
Outcome: Create a 30-second video that uses image, text and music to faithfully represent the theme of a novel.
Standards: analyze theme of narrative works, use multimedia components in presentations to clarify information and add interest.

In this activity, students will first analyze a novel they have chosen for theme and tone. They will identify the literary elements used by the author to progress the action or plot, and will select a small number of short phrases or words from the text that capture the essence of the story's theme. Next, students will select Creative Commons licensed and/or copyright friendly images to show some key elements of the story, consistent with the analysis they have already completed. Finally, they will upload images into Animoto, add their selected text, and select a music track that is consistent with their novel. The final product is a short "book trailer" that will encourage others to read their novel.

I think that by starting with the analysis, before there is any discussion of the technology to be used, students will focus better on the concept of theme. Once they have identified the theme, I might potentially scaffold the assignment by asking students questions such as, "what does 'suspense' look like or sound like?" Knowing that they will eventually have to sell the book to the rest of their classmates is generally a good motivation for students this age - having a survey or  +1 next to each published final product might be a good peer review strategy, particularly if the Animoto videos are not linked to a student name.

One possible extension to this activity is to identify the antithesis to the theme of the novel, and create a book trailer for the anti-novel. While it's not made in Animoto, Scary Mary does a nice job of showing how to turn a theme on its head!