At the Top of Mississippi: Southaven

Objective – To create a visual tour of our city by recording events that our students enjoy participating in and the way teens could live if they moved into our area. With the culture and socio economic diversity in our area, there is something for everyone. One of the main concerns that parents have when they are anticipating a move to a new city is what the city has to offer their children in the areas of education, recreation, and other facets of life. This will give our students the opportunity to share what they feel is important and what other children might see through them that would make a move or transition easier to make.


Project Details –
Student will check out the classroom cameras when they attend certain civic and cultural events. They will record the event and write a narrative for that event. This will include the everyday occurrences such as sports and recreation teams, spiritual meetings, class projects, and other things that are considered regular and ritual. Students will also be assigned to record special events like concerts, festivals, political events, and events that are special and may be one time things. The students will learn the basics in photography and journalism, so they can capture the best moments when they become available.

During this project students will study and record the history of the city and include some of these facts in their reporting of events. The students will examine the information and in small organized groups will create a plan as to how the photos will be arranged and labeled. They will also use the writing process to create the narration that will be attached to the video. During the planning process, they will have to incorporate the map features and plot several points to be included in the narration. This will be an on-going project that we can expand upon monthly and add to every year. We can update the project as new interests arise or new opportunities present themselves in the city.

Mississippi Framework Objectives – Technology
Students will:
1. Demonstrate knowledge of current changes in information technologies and the effect those changes have on the workplace and society.
2. Exhibit legal and ethical behaviors when using information and technology.
3. Use content-specific tools, software, and simulations to support learning and research.
4. Apply productivity/multimedia tools and peripherals to support personal productivity, group collaboration, and learning throughout the curriculum.
5. Design, develop, publish, and present products using technology resources that demonstrate and communicate curriculum concepts to audiences inside and outside the classroom.
6. Collaborate with peers, experts, and others using telecommunications and collaborative tools to investigate curriculum-related problems, issues, and information, and develop solutions or products for audiences inside and outside the classroom.
7. Select and use appropriate tools and technology resources to accomplish a variety of tasks and solve problems.
8. Demonstrate an understanding of concepts underlying hardware, software, and connectivity and of practical applications to learning and problem solving.
9. Research and evaluate the accuracy, relevance, appropriateness, comprehensiveness, and bias of electronic information sources concerning real-world problems.
10. Demonstrate an understanding of desktop publishing concepts.
11. Demonstrate proficiency in importing, formatting, and positioning text.
12. Demonstrate proficiency in the use of graphic images.
13. Discuss animation software and procedures for creating animation.
14. Research legal aspects involved in using both original material and that obtained from an outside source.
15. Develop and present an interactive media project on an assigned topic.
16. Research legal concerns for media production.
17. Identify components and use of multimedia equipment.

This project will also incorporate cross curriculum studies in math, history, English, and writing skills.

Mississippi Framework Objectives – Math
Students will:
1. Organize, interpret, analyze, and display data to predict trends.
2. Analyze data to make predictions.
3. Interpret data.
4. Use a given mean, mode, median, and range to summarize and compare data sets including investigation of the different effects that change in data have on these measures of central tendency, and select the appropriate measures of central tendency for a given purpose.
5. Solve real-world problems involving measurements (i.e., circumference, perimeter, area, volume, distance, temperature, etc.).

Mississippi Framework Objectives – English
Students will:
1. Use word recognition and vocabulary (word meaning) skills to communicate.
2. Develop and apply expansive knowledge of words and word meanings to communicate.
3. Analyze, interpret, compare, contrast, or respond to increasingly complex literary text, literary nonfiction, and informational text citing text-based evidence.
4. Author’s purpose (e.g., inform, entertain, persuade)
5. Evaluate the author’s use of facts, opinions, or tools of persuasion in written and visual texts to determine author’s purpose and consider the effect of persuasive text on the intended audience.
6. Evaluate the use of and distinguish between fact and opinion.
7. Evaluate the author’s use of tools of persuasion (e.g., name calling, endorsement, repetition, air and rebut the other side’s point of view, association, stereotypes, bandwagon, plain folks, tabloid thinking, shock tactics and fear, intertextual references, card stacking, slanted words, etc).

Mississippi Framework Objectives – Writing Skills
Students will:
1. Express, communicate, evaluate, or exchange ideas effectively.
2. Use and reflect on an appropriate composing process (e.g., planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing) to express, communicate, evaluate, or exchange ideas with a focus on texts increasing complexity and length.

A) Planning
Plan for composing using a variety of strategies (e.g., brainstorming, drawing, graphic organizers, peer discussion, reading, viewing).

B) Drafting
Draft with increasing fluency.

C) Revising
Revise selected drafts by adding, elaborating, deleting, and rearranging text based on teacher/peer feedback, writer’s checklist, or rubric.

D) Editing
Edit/proofread drafts to ensure standard usage, mechanics, spelling, and varied sentence structure.

E) Publishing/Sharing


Mississippi Framework Objectives – History
Students will:
1. Analyze spatial and ecological relationships between people, places, and environments utilizing social studies tools (e.g., timelines, mental and physical maps, globes, resources, graphs, a compass rose, political cartoons, charts, primary and secondary sources, technology, and other geographical representations).
2. Measure/calculate distance on a variety of maps (e.g., map scales, etc.).
3. Analyze geographic information using social studies tools (e.g., graphs, timelines, maps, charts, globes, technology, etc.).
4. Identify cardinal and intermediate directions on maps.
5. Evaluate land use with a variety of maps (e.g., farming, industrial, recreation, housing, etc.).
6. Explain map essentials (e.g., scale, map symbols, elevation, etc.).
7. Analyze civic life, politics, and government.