Write to Read

Overview

From the beginning of school, using a camera students narrate their school's activities and events. Students take pictures of Homecoming, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, ballgames, and other school events. The pictures and narration are placed in PowerPoint for a digital story of the school year. The PowerPoint is written to a CD. The CD is sold to students and parents. The money collected is enough to sustain the project but is affordable ($5.00 a CD.) This is a great project for students, and they are great for money making projects. We record the school's band. The clip is inserted in the student presentations. Students take shots on field trips and narrate the different activities. A typical lesson plan is taking pictures of a pep rally and then narrating a story of what happened with high lights of the following sports event. Through this project, their self esteem improved, reading and writing became fun, and most importantly reading and writing was useful and important. Students with cameras are happy and involved students. We now do a lot of research relating it to our topic. For example: We interview students as to where they will be traveling during spring break. We then research those places in order to narrate our story. The purpose of this lesson is to improve language arts through digital images and sound. Students will work individually and in groups. Students will take pictures of school events and activities. Using a word processor, students will narrate and chronicle the event. It may involve students interviewing, researching, and editing photos. Finally, they will use the Multimedia Lab to create a slide show to share with the class and family/community members. This becomes small business practice as the CD's are sold as a fund-raiser.

LESSON TITLE: Write to Read
SUBJECT AREA(S): READING, WRITING, & TECHNOLOGY
GRADE LEVEL: 6TH, 7TH, AND 8TH
LESSON SUMMARY

The purpose of this lesson is to write to improve reading skills. Students work individually and in groups. Students take pictures of school events and activities. Using a camera students narrate their school's activities and events from the beginning of school. Students take pictures of Homecoming, Thanksgiving to Christmas, and Valentines to spring. The pictures and narration is placed in PowerPoint for a digital story of the school year. We write the PowerPoint to a CD. The CD is sold to students and parents. The money collected is enough to sustain the project but is affordable ($5.00 a CD.)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lesson, the students will:
• Be able to effectively operate a digital camera.
• Be able to narrate an event•
• Be able to sequence the events in a school activity.
• Be able to create an electronic product using Multimedia Lab V.
• Orally present electronic products for evaluation by fellow students.


LESSON INTRODUCTION
Lessons will begin with writing simple sentences about pictures and will evolve into sequencing and narration of several pictures that will tell a story.

ACTIVITIES

Prior to going to computer:
Day 1: Digital camera usage demonstrations and practice.
Day 2: The teacher will demonstrate photo editing. Students will learn how to take photographs and how to edit them.
Day 3: Students will take pictures of an event and use paper and pencil to record notes about the event(s).

At the computer:
Day 5: Students will choose pictures to insert into a Microsoft Word document. Students will write a paragraph for each picture as they narrate a story.
Day 5 (cont’d.): Groups will print out their Word Documents.
Day 6: Complete Multimedia Lab V Tutorials in the Computer Lab.
Day 7: Groups will use the Slide Show to tell their story.
Day 7 (cont’d.): Groups will work on their Multimedia Lab V project.
Day 8: Students will review their projects together, complete or revise as desired, and all of the projects will be saved to a CD.
Day 9: Make presentations to the school as the students watch these project via an in-school television system.
Day 9 (cont’d.): Students will sell the CD's to parents.
Day 10: Students will keep records and do math as they run their mini business.

Open House: The projects will be displayed over the in-school television system throughout the school.

Evaluation: (1) Students will be able to take pictures, sequence, explain, and narrate with them.
(2) District and local writing standards will be addressed such as: Students write paragraphs that are clear, coherent, and focused. The writing exhibits the students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.
(3) Students and parents support and participate in this project.