Showing posts with label National Day on Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Day on Writing. Show all posts

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Ignite Presentations With 4th graders

Our 4th grade team is working on a 4th grade project around Making a Difference in the World.  We began this project last year and it was inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  The project combines social studies (citizenship, economics, etc.). literacy and art.  This year, we've changed a few things and added a few things.

Our 4th graders are busy creating products to be sold at our annual Art Show in March.  Students are using art time to create their own products that will be marketable to the audience. I can't wait to shop!  Last year, each child donated money earned to an individual cause--one that they cared about and had researched. We changed this a bit this year. Our entire 4th grade will be donating one cause for the money. But we wanted kids to know that money was not the only way to make a difference. We want the to understand there there are lots of ways to make a difference and raising awareness about an issue is one of them.

So, each child has been researching a cause that matters to them. These topics range from homelessness to distracted driving to foster care to pediatric cancer.  Kids have spent the last several weeks learning about these issues and collecting information using diigo (more on that at another time!).

This week, kids will begin to create IGNITE-type presentations to educate others about these important issues.  As a team, we decided on an IGNITE presentation for several reasons.  If you aren't familiar with IGNITE presentations, they are similar to Pecha Kucha sessions but in Ignite, presenters use 15 slides and each slide is up for 15 seconds.The Ignite tagline is "Enlighten us, but make it quick." I love that and it seems that there is a lot to learn when given these parameters.  This seems doable for 4th graders and it is an authentic genre.
We knew that this format would support our teaching goals--research, nonfiction writing, visuals to support message, etc.  We have noticed that although our students used keynote, the presentations are text, rather than visual driven. We knew that an assignment like this could really improve the way they thought about creating presentations of all kind.

One challenge was to find samples for the students. Since many of them were not familiar with Ignite presentations, we wanted them to spend time studying the craft of the format before they jumped in. Finding Ignite presentations (or PechaKucha) so students could get a feel for the type of work they would be doing was a challenge--many are geared to adults and not appropriate for children. However, we did find several that we used and the conversations around what was possible with these have been wonderful. One of my goals when it comes to digital writing is to collect great mentors for kids--pieces that writers can study as they think about their own decisions as writers. For this project, I found four very different presentations that have helped us think through decision making when creating this type of piece.  Each of these four slideshows is very different and each opens up different possibilities for our stuents.  The four we have focused on are:

Clowns Without Borders: Pecha Kucha


Why Blog? Ignite by Chris Lysy


Ignite: Jessica Harvey: My Beautiful Wheelchair



And, How and Why to Make Video Games by Peter Justeson


This week, students will begin their work on their Ignite presentations.  I am working on one myself and we've created some planning templates to help students move forward with these projects.

This page has 15 squares on 2 pages for students to think through and plan their presentation as a whole.
Each student will receive 15 of these half sheets for detailed work---visual, script, and notes.

I think that this project will help students learn a great deal as researchers and writers, but I think they will also learn a great deal about visuals, creating powerful presentations, and presentation skills that they will be able to carry with them no matter what they create in the future.

I'll keep you posted!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

National Day on Writing!


It's finally here! NCTE's National Day on Writing!

Check out the Kidlitosphere's Gallery, "A Lifetime of Reading."

KidLitCon09 attendees had this to say about their lifetime of reading:



Thanks to the folks who agreed to appear on camera (in order of appearance):

Pam Coughlan (MotherReader),
Jen Robinson (Jen Robinson's Book Page),
Melissa Fox (Book Nut),
Karen Terlecky (Literate Lives),
Bill Prosser (Literate Lives),
Sara Lewis Holmes (Read, Write, Believe),
Tricia Stohr-Hunt (The Miss Rumphius Effect),
Olgy Gary (Olgy's Blog),
Julie Dauksis (Grow Up With Books),
Lara Ivey (Grow Up With Books),
Terry Doherty (Scrub-a-Dub-Tub),
Maureen Kearney (Confessions of a Bibliovore), and
Greg Pincus (GottaBook).

Friday, August 21, 2009

Poetry Friday -- A Lifetime of Reading

I Met a Dragon Face to Face
by Jack Prelutsky

I met a dragon face to face
the year when I was ten,
I took a trip to outer space,
I braved a pirate's den,
I wrestled with a wicked troll,
and fought a great white shark,
I trailed a rabbit down a hole,
I hunted for a snark.

I stowed aboard a submarine,
I opened magic doors,
I traveled in a time machine,
and searched for dinosaurs,
I climbed atop a giant's head,
I found a pot of gold,
I did all this in books I read
when I was ten years old.


Members of the Kidlitosphere,
SHARE YOUR READING STORY ON OUR GALLERY!

Franki and I have started a Gallery for NCTE's National Day on Writing. Here is a description of our gallery:

A LIFETIME OF READING

Members of the Kidlitosphere are invited to submit stories from their reading lives. Your submission can be an anecdote from childhood, a recent experience around books or reading, a memory from school (good or bad), a vignette about learning to read, the impact of a particular book--anything about your life as a reader.

We are looking for a variety of short pieces (think blog post length) from anyone in the Kidlitosphere, including bloggers, authors, illustrators, readers of blogs, etc.


Our gallery is open to everyone who is a blogger, blog reader, author, illustrator, blog reader, blog commenter, etc.

Here is our gallery.




The Poetry Friday Round Up is at The Boy Reader this week.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Submit a Piece about Your Reading Life to our Local Gallery

We are excited to be hosting a Local Gallery as part of NCTE's NATIONAL DAY ON WRITING CELEBRATION! On October 20, the National Galleries will be open to the public. There are lots of great galleries that highlight the writing that we all do in our daily lives. Mary Lee and I will be curating a local gallery as part of the submission and we are inviting you to join us by writing a piece for the gallery.

Here is the description of our Gallery:

A LIFETIME OF READING

Members of the Kidlitosphere are invited to submit stories from their reading lives. Your submission can be an anecdote from childhood, a recent experience around books or reading, a memory from school (good or bad), a vignette about learning to read, the impact of a particular book--anything about your life as a reader.

We are looking for a variety of short pieces (think blog post length) from anyone in the Kidlitosphere, including bloggers, authors, illustrators, readers of blogs, etc.


We wanted the Kidlitosphere to be part of the National Day on Writing so we started a gallery that went along with the thing we do best--write about our reading lives. Everyone who is a blogger, blog reader, author, illustrator, blog reader, blog commenter, etc. is invited to submit a piece of writing. We hope you'll join us! You can visit our local gallery, "A Lifetime of Reading" to submit a piece and read about guidelines for submission.

Right now, it is empty, but we are excited about the possibilities--a place to share stories of our reading lives! We think the Kidlitosphere can pull together to create a pretty amazing gallery that celebrates the lives of readers!