Last week, with the thought of creating book trailers as a summative learning experience for independent reading, Mr. Smarth’s 6th grade students chose like independent reading books in groups of two or three students. This week, they scanned their chosen books for found poetic lines and created Found Poetry Videos using our Animoto educator account.
Students each worked independently to complete their storyboard templates and then worked collaboratively to chose the found poetic lines and boards which fit together best. Together they found and chose copyright friendly images, either by using those available from Animoto or those found on the Images Page on the Lounsberry’s Virtual Learning Commons. They created image citations on a Powerpoint Slide saved as a .jpeg and chose music available on Animoto that best portrayed the mood of their found poems.
What students learned:
- to recognize poetic and figurative language found in literary text
- to determine mood drawn through text
- to use the digital creations of others in a responsible manner
- to use a tech tool which requires downloading and uploading of images and text
This learning experience acted as a precursor or “warm up” exercise for upcoming plans to make book trailers. In addition, it encouraged engagement for their upcoming independent reading by giving them something to look forward to. Independent reading in small groups, whether creating book clubs, literature circles or simply reading the same book at the same time, while still allowing for choice, encourages discourse.
Next time I’d add a rubric that considers: how many slides created, language/text chosen, image selection, music creating mood, correct citation format, spelling (basically because it’s plain old careless to spell incorrectly on a final production!) and overall composition.
The only draw back of using Animoto is that it’s almost too easy to use! These videos came out looking great with very little effort on the part of students. But then again isn’t that the purpose of technology- to make our lives easier! Some students have already transferred their learning by creating videos for their moms for Mother’s Day which is right around the corner. Easy Peasy; this one’s a winner! Thanks to the folks at Animoto!
Always Interested 
This is interesting! Creating book trailers show people what the book is about and to get them into it. It is also fun creating book trailers. You can create the music! You can also write some of the poem lines of the book! That is awesome! It seems fun to do it, I would like to do that!
I am in Mr.Smarth’speriod 1and 2 language Arts class and I made a Found Poetry Video with my partners. The book we made a video about was The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein. The Crossroads is a chilling thriller about a evil ghost that tries to reck terror on inicent people.Animoto makes making videos easy and fun and I would recomend you try using it.
I am in Mr.Smarths class and I though it was fun to do the “Found Poetry Videos” with animoto. ” Next time I’d add a rubric that considers: how many slides created, language/text chosen, image selection, music creating mood, correct citation format, spelling” I think it would help us a lot with the book trailors because I found it a little hard with no instrustions to follow so this is a good thing to consider.