Language+Arts

@http://www.scholastic.com/librarians/ab/booktalks.htm [] media type="file" key="Harry Potter.wmv" width="300" height="300" media type="file" key="Movie_0001.wmv" width="300" height="300" ||
 * **Tool** || **Project Title** || **Description** ||
 * Windows Movie Maker || Booktalks || The eighth grade language arts takes time at the end of their fiction unit to create booktalks. Students chose a fiction book they had read during the current school year that they would recommend to another reader and used the booktalk organizer below to create a commercial for that book. If two students had read and enjoyed the same book, they were allowed to work in pairs. The students were filmed using the school's Flip Cameras and then uploaded and edited the films using Windows Movie Maker. The entire lesson is laid out below in the organizer and checklist.
 * GoAnimate || Re-Told Classics: Edgar Allan Poe || Students read classic short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. After reading the stories, students created an animated re-telling of the story. This is an example based on "The Fall of the House of Usher."

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 * TimeToast || "Your Life" Timeline || At the beginning of the school year, the students created personal timelines to introduce themselves to their new Language Arts teachers.

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 * Photostory 3 for Windows || Poems || The 6th grade students used Photostory to display their poetry skills. They were required to use certain literary elements in their poems: simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, and personification. Students brought in their own pictures on a flash drive or disk to upload for the project.

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 * Toondoo || Fairy Tales || After reading and studying numerous fairy tales as a part of their fiction unit, the 6th graders then had the opportunity to write their own fairy tale based on one of the stories they had studied in class. Students then used Toondoo to turn their handwritten fairy tale into a picture book. The sixth grade language arts teacher worked with a local elementary principal to set up a time that our students would visit the elementary school and share their picture books with the kindergarten students. Our students loved sharing their hard work with a real audience.

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 * Live Binder || Chapter Summaries || This tool allows students to create a three ring binder on the web. For this project, students kept a journal as they read. Students focused on literary devices, important quotes, chapter summary, and specific story elements from //The Hobbit//.

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 * Bubbl Us || Characterization in Fiction || Bubbl Us is great for brainstorming or creating character maps. In this example students chose a character from The Hunger Games and used the bubble map to discuss the author's development of the character through the character's actions and attitude, thoughts and feelings, what is said about the character and things the character says. They used the chart below to help organize their thoughts.



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When the language arts classroom was reading //The Giver,// they used this program to keep track of the characters. At the end of every chapter the students added new character traits to their existing charts. media type="custom" key="8469354"

Another example from 8th grade language arts deals with //The Hunger Games//. ||
 * Glogster || Short Story Summaries

Chapter Summaries || Students read short stories in class and used glogster to analyze certain elements of the text. In this particular glog, students used their page to describe two characters, describe setting, create a plot line, discuss conflict, and provide a summary.

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Students also used glogster to create pages for chapter summary. Each group was assigned a chapter to present to the class. Planning sheet for the Glogster project media type="custom" key="8527752"

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