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By Stephanie Di Palma. Book Trailers. About Me. Steph Di Palma Final year of Doctoral studies in Education Qualified Primary and Secondary English teacher Teach Education students at the University Committee member for ALEA Presenting at National ALEA & AATE conference in July.
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By Stephanie Di Palma Book Trailers
About Me • Steph Di Palma • Final year of Doctoral studies in Education • Qualified Primary and Secondary English teacher • Teach Education students at the University • Committee member for ALEA • Presenting at National ALEA & AATE conference in July
The Issue • Things I wanted to address: • Disengagement in literacy- specifically directed at Middle Years • Enabling reasoning and higher order learning through reasoning in both collaborative and individual learning tasks • Making sure the learning tasks fit in with current school and national curriculum • Incorporating technology and literacy • Making sure students are able to be active participants in the construction and production of a multimodal text
The Book Trailer • What is it? A multimodal text based on a book, with the intention of persuading the audience to want to read the book. Like a movie trailer but for books.
Why? • In that trailer alone: • Students created their own sound effects (eg: the marching of the soldiers, the cutting of the hair, voice over/narration) • Students layered still images, video, text, sound effects and audio together- understanding the elements and how to synchronise different media to create a polished piece • Students sourced and chose all media for the Book Trailer by themselves based on the message of the text they wanted to portray • Students drafted and planned all text and persuasive language • All these product design decisions were made by a group of 4, female Year 7 students.
Context • Worked with two Year 7 English classes • Approximately 40 to a class • Students were grouped in groups of 3-4 • All students had to have read the same text and studied it in Novel Study the term prior • Students completed the task as an Oral Presentation unit, where they had to present the trailer (Awards Day) and discuss their task design choices and experiences throughout the unit
What to do first • Explore the concept of a Book Trailer • This is an important discussion to have with students to ensure they understand the underlying objective of the task based on the text style.
Develop Quality Indicators • Show examples of different Book Trailers to your students and get them to critique and develop a series of statements that indicate quality and success in achieving the objective of a Book Trailer • Make sure they justify their statements
We shall have a go at success indicators activity during interactive aspect of workshop
Develop Specifications/Criteria • It would be ideal to analyse a few examples of movie and book trailers and identify a list of features that are specific to a trailer. • Eg: • never discloses the ending of the story • Uses persuasive language to be suggestive and ominous • Synchronises audio and visual along with language to represent the message or themes of the text • Includes some form of review or critique from an expert
Specifications From The Unit • Needs to include the title of the novel and the author’s name in the trailer • Needs to have sound effects (can be originally composed) • Needs to have at least one: • Quote from the novel • Review from a critic or expert • Needs to have on element of live footage (includes acting and dialogue) • Needs to have consistent transitions and at least one visual effect • Needs to have voice over • Has to be a minimum of 2 ½ minutes and a maximum of 3 minutes
Group Task • Wanted to expose students to more opportunities for collaborative learning in a secondary learning setting • Wanted to allow for instances of group decision making, justification of arguments and access to alternative ways of thinking • Gave students in groups of 3-4 roles to assist the production phase of the unit and keep them on track with their learning and goals
Roles • Director: • Script – all text in BT. Develops script. • Sound – all music and sound effects in BT. • Visual – all graphic elements in BT. • Editor – all editing and transitions. • Producer • Goals – writes 3 goals at the beginning of session. • USB – ensures BT and files are saved on USB. • Secretary – records and notes daily decisions. • Research Assistant – records and notes any out of school contact/communication and through what means.
Storyboarding • It is essential that students plan the specific elements they are going to include in their Book Trailer prior to actually beginning their slides • Provide students with the option to plan their trailer digitally or traditionally on a template
Storyboarding • Being a group task, each student was asked to plan a storyboard individually • They would then come together as a group and present their plans to each other, justifying their thinking and ideas • The group would then create a group storyboard discussing, exploring and justifying which aspects from the 3 or 4 individual storyboards should be included
Fitting In With Curriculum • Can be an ICT, Persuasive Text and/or Creative Text Unit • Promotes motivation and engagement • Affords opportunities for students to experience higher order learning through reasoning • Enables students to work collaboratively towards a final product
Australian Curriculum Grade 5 • Students create a variety of sequenced texts for different purposes and audiences. • They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, taking into account other perspectives.
Grade 6 • They listen to discussions, clarifying content and challenging others’ ideas. • They show how specific details can be used to support a point of view. • They explain how their choices of language features and images are used. • Students create detailed texts elaborating on key ideas for a range of purposes and audiences. • They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using a variety of strategies for effect.
Year 7 • They demonstrate understanding of how the choice of language features, images and vocabulary affects meaning. • Students explain issues and ideas from a variety of sources, analysing supporting evidence and implied meaning. • They select specific details from texts to develop their own response, recognising that texts reflect different viewpoints. • They listen for and explain different perspectives in texts. • They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using language features to engage the audience. • When creating and editing texts they demonstrate understanding of grammar, use a variety of more specialised vocabulary, accurate spelling and punctuation.
Year 8 • They explain the effectiveness of language choices they use to influence the audience. • Through combining ideas, images and language features from other texts, students show how ideas can be expressed in new ways. • Students create texts for different purposes, selecting language to influence audience response. • They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using language patterns for effect. • When creating and editing texts to create specific effects, they take into account intended purposes and the needs and interests of audiences.
Year 9 • In creating texts, students demonstrate how manipulating language features and images can create innovative texts. • Students create texts that respond to issues, interpreting and integrating ideas from other texts. • They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, comparing and evaluating responses to ideas and issues. • They edit for effect, selecting vocabulary and grammar that contribute to the precision and persuasiveness of texts and using accurate spelling and punctuation.
Units Need To Continue Promoting 21st Century Skills • Technology has brought about a crucial change in the way we use literacy practices to make meaning • It is essential that we teach our students these new 21st century skills through techno blended learning tasks, while also providing opportunities for them to practice these skills
Teacher Perspective “Students needed more teacher input, because they needed a critical friend… I need to be that little voice in their ear that asks ‘why did you do that?’” “Yes the unit engaged the students… the fact that they had the freedom to do their own thing- I think they very much liked that, that independence”
“Our last success was our communication. During this whole unit we were able to communicate cooperatively and productively. We could discuss our ideas and as well have the other members give their say about the idea and why we should or shouldn’t consider it. There were some arguments time to time, but we were able to get over them as quickly as possible” Group 8- Reflection during Oral Presentation
Reasoning It is a higher order cognitive function that asks us to use various judgemental, interpretative and logical skills based on variables such as general knowledge, conclusions, inferences and other peoples’ perspectives.
Is Reasoning Mentioned In The English Curriculum? • Yes, however it is predominantly identified in VCE disciplines of English. • Students are required to: • Critically analyse • Justify • Comparatively analyse • Communicate complex ideas • Adapt and manipulate points of view • Evaluate • Communicates sophisticated ideas
Where Are These Instances Of Reasoning In The Unit? Why? • Any opportunity for students to explain, justify, argue, critically analyse and reevaluate theirs and others’ points of view and thinking • Eg: Specifications, Quality Indicators, Storyboarding, Goal Keeping, working on netbooks to collect material, using media
How did you feel when you knew you had an English class for the day? “Before we did the book trailer- I like English as a subject but before we did the book trailer I was like “oh we have English- more comprehension questions”- more stuff like that. And it’s going to be the same for Film just answer more questions but it’s still more ICT. Umm but then when we started the book trailer I was thinking “Oh yes!” working with friends, learning new stuff, like trying to produce something that we’ll probably remember for our lives. Not like it’s anything massive- but it was pretty special because we didn’t know computer stuff at all”
Developing Quality Indicators • Check out the following Book Trailers • In groups note down and critique aspects of a “good” book trailer • Share your quality indicators to the class
Did you experience instances of decision making and justification? • If not, the challenge is how are you going to scaffold the task so that students experience decision making? It’s important to provide instances of reasoning • Did you use appropriate language and terminology? Eg: layering, media, transitions, slides
Storyboarding • In your groups of 3-4, begin to construct a storyboard based on the following picture story books on your tables. • Remember to consider the specifications and quality indicators. • Make sure you explain and justify your decisions and ideas.
Remember • Students need to identify and consider what aspects of the trailer make it good or bad- and get them to explain why • Planning a storyboard is essential! This ensures that students are not wasting their time collecting images and music for the whole lesson with no idea where it goes in the trailer • Give students roles to track their progress and keep them focused with goal keeping throughout the unit • Make sure you conference and take time to review the trailers every lesson • Have a festival or showcase day where students can present and view one another’s trailers and reflect on their experiences
