Book Trailers

For our culminating projects of Literature Circles, the boys have created book trailers to promote their book. I first heard about this idea from our tech coach and on the English Companion Ning. When I first started researching book trailers, I found a great website called Digital Booktalk that was started by research students at the University of Central Florida. I showed my students the examples of student contributed work on the site and told them we would be submitting our book trailers to this site. (Immediately their interest was piqued!)

We began the process by having our tech coach, Melissa Smith, come into our room to teach the boys about iMovie. They then used storyboards to plan their movies, keeping in mind the requirements for their movie (they needed to include the book's main characters, theme, conflict, and setting). They used Flip cameras and a "green screen" (actually a green sheet) to film reenactments of important scenes from their books. I had no idea how much fun they (and I) would have with this. I was excited to see all the props and costumes they were bringing in-- they were even getting their groups together to film scenes at their houses over the weekend!

I also met with the instrumental music teacher to see if he could use some of his class time to teach the boys about creating their own music in Garageband. They spent two class periods with him composing music that mirrored their story's plot. We spent most of this past week editing, and the final products are pretty impressive. One example is below on the book The Liberation of Gabriel King. I will definitely do this project again-- I think using book trailers fosters a love of reading and encourages deeper understanding of the texts. This kind of project reminds me that learning CAN be engaging and exciting.

Article from Educational Leadership about book trailers

Book Trailers from Courtney Humphreys on Vimeo.

The Language of My Classroom

I keep a flashcard on my desk that is a great reminder for me (especially at the end of the year when the schedule, my students, and life in general feels hectic and out of control.) The flashcards says:

Language of my classroom:

-language of community

-language of identity

-language of agency

-language of noticing and naming

-language of knowing

As I strive to develop a culture of thinking in my classroom, I remember that the language of my classroom is an important facet of the culture I am trying to create. Ron Ritchhart focuses on these languages in his book, Intellectual Character (an amazing read!) It is important to foster these languages in my classroom, and Literature Circles have helped us become more "fluent" in them this year. We have developed into more of a community because the students have been working with the same small group and have rotated their jobs. I find myself saying, "We need to figure out..." or "We need to meet and discuss...." becaues I am constantly rotating around and joining in on the conversations taking place. My students need to see themselves as writers, creators, co-collaborators--and they have done just that as they have been given specific jobs and responsibilities to complete. They feel a sense of agency and autonomy when my classroom is student-centered, not teacher-centered, and they are in charge of their own learning.

I asked my students for feedback about Literature Circles in a recent Edmodo post, and their comments confirmed what I have observed all quarter. They love what we are doing, and they wish we had done more of it.