Christy Stringfield

Creativity was the name of the game for the last iRead project of the year. The project is now complete for most of the students in the class, and I learned one very important lesson, this project needs to be started very early in the year next year. For this project students created sound fx stories. While this wasn't a traditional Reading Comprehension lesson using the HM materials, there was more than enough focus on good comprehension activities to make this project worthwhile, and by far my favorite of the year.

Let's start at the beginning... Students were told they were to create, write, perform, direct, edit, etc. there own sound effect story. We began by listening to a couple of great examples from Ruyasonic.com and exploring some of the sounds available on Garageband. Then I had students watch an old video production of some behind the scenes work on a 1940's era radio show. This got them interested in the possibilities. They brainstormed ideas either by themselves or with a partner of sounds they might wish to use and then began creating a story. I had countless lessons on storytelling, proper use of narration, dialog, creating a scene and creating a visual image using words and sounds. For some of the more advanced students, I incorporated lessons on scene building and creating dual story lines that increase tension. Students began writing their stories using the iPod app Screenplay. This app was an awesome find and I can't wait to try using it next year for some other reading comprehension lessons on visualization. Here is one student's example script:

Using Screenplay eliminated much of the need to teach formating as it does it for you, and allowed me to concentrate on teaching the main elements of scene, characters, dialog, parentheticals, actions, transitions and of course sound effects.

Once scripts were written, the student authors began casting their roles. As far as classroom management went, this was one of the easiest pieces of the project. For the first recording, students read from scripts that were posted on student blogs and used iTalk to record just their role. I asked them to pause for a second before recording the new line to make editing easier for the students. The student editors then used iTalk sync to bring all of their recordings into Garageband. Then came the hard work of trimming, and editing the sound files and organizing them in the correct order, all of which was easy to follow with the scripts.

The final and most fun step was to add the sound effects and music that made the story come to life. Here is a sample excert of the final Sound FX story of the Haunted Amusement Park.

Among the many audio only projects we have done this year on a regular basis, the most successful have been those that students used as replacements to some of their practice book pages. For this project, the students recorded an oral KWL chart. I had students record their thought on what they already knew about life on the prairie. Then while they were reading, they recorded wonderings and questions they had. Finally, they recorded what they had learned after they had finished reading the selection.

Listening to a partner's recording is always the final step, as it's important that they understand what others may be thinking as well.

Here is a compilation of several student's work.

My students are each going to create a screenplay and storyboard with a partner this year. Their topic is to become Mythbusters. They are taking one of their science topics that they or others may have a misconception about. The best scripts and screenplays will be made into movies. (I'm hoping they will all be able to film!)

Currently, most of my students are finishing some of their other projects they began before the winter break and haven't had a chance to finish their storyboards. Some of the students are trying to sketch out some of the scenes on MobileStudio, before putting their pictures in Storyboard composer (ie Hitchcock) on their iPods. We only have 2 classroom cameras to use for actual stills.

Here is a sample of one of my students scripts, they are busting the myth that there is no gravity in space: (this is an unedited script with no camera directions as of yet created in MobileStudio)

For everyone wishing to check out my class blog, here is the link:

I decided the final project for both Project Live and iRead would be a whole class student only production.  I wanted to see how far the students could go with a project that incorporated both video and voice to increase reading comprehension.  It was decided that we would use one of the last non-fiction selections from our anthology and turn it into a movie.  We used the story "The Grizzly Bear Family Book".  I saw a video at the iVIE festival that used torn paper art stop animation and thought it might be a fun way to get the whole class involved.  The story is divided into the four seasons, following a family of grizzlies, and lent itself naturally to four groups.  The groups got together and turned their section of the story into a movie script and storyboard.  Following editing and approval by the whole class, groups got together to make their backgrounds and characters.  Scenes were entirely student shot and edited (I really limited my input on this one).  A narrator was chosen to record in Garageband and several attempts were made to match the words with the movie.  The finishing touches were to add some rain and snow special effects and add a soundtrack.  My job was to film a documentary with 2 student directors of the process, which i will post separately.  Enjoy!

For my third project, the students planned to use only the iPod's to complete all of their recording.  This was challenging because they cannot go back and rerecord if they only messed up a small portion.  We had not downloaded iTalk yet.  The assignment for them was to use the beautiful illustrations in Black Cowboy, Wild Horses to complete a picture walk on their own of the story.  They went beyond just predicting what the story would be about, to making up a story on their own.  This was done independently.  Here is an example of a picture walk:

When we finished reading the selection, students worked in groups to retell their stories, again using the pictures, but this time correcting their predictions with the actual events.

This was a fun project for the students to do.  I added an extra piece in my instructions to the students asking them to use as much figurative language in their recordings as possible.  I was really pleased with the outcomes.

This is a student-edited only version of the movie.  There is still a lot of cleanup work to do this weekend, and one scene that I'm going to change.  Any comments would be appreciated. (Note:  Video has been updated to final cut)

The completed project had some kids responding to the story, others researched background information and presented their findings, and the last group recited the poem from the book.

For my second project, I plan on having the students create a Garageband podcast for the selection Pioneer Girl.  This is a non-fiction selection about a girl whose family moves to Nebraska in the 1800's.  The students will create Hotseat questions to ask a classmate who will pretend they are Grace in the story.  They will find pictures to describe one of the hardships her family faced during their early years in their new home.

After reviewing the deadlines for this project and realizing that we won't begin Pioneer Girl until the day after the project is due, we changed the focus and did the same time of activity for a read aloud that the class just finished on Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry.  Students were assigned to groups to complete several tasks.  Some were asked to pretend they were characters in the book and an interviewer asked them questions, others were to research background information on Jim Crow Laws, the KKK, sharecropping and lynching and present their findings.  They then put this together with pictures I had predownloaded for them.

For our first Keynote project, I chose to do a class project with the story "James Forten" from our anthology.  One of the key problems that I have found my students struggle with in reading grade level text is making a mental picture "visualizing" what it is that they've read.  So for this project I thought I would see if Keynote would help with comprehension.  After presenting the background info and introducing the vocabulary for the selection, I assigned a pair of students about 3 paragraphs to read.  After reading, they had to draw a picture of what they visualized as they read.  Then they had to create a script summarizing their reading, describing their picture and asking and answering a fact, inference, vocabulary, and experience (FIVE question strategy) questions.  After writing the scripts, they recorded them in garageband and I put it all together in Keynote.

My movie doesn't seem finished, but as it's the deadline, I guess I'd better post.  The students were really the creation behind the whole film.  Besides developing the concept, writing the script, and creating the storyboard, they also directed, filmed and obviously acted it out.  While I ran out of time to teach them all the fine points of editing, they did take their turn at playing with the soundtrack and narrative voice over.  If I had more time, I would have them  probably rerecord all the dialog.

This is the student created Storyboard and Script for "The Reading Zone".  Like the pitch, the students decided on the shots, took the pictures, ordered the action and created the entire script for the production.  It looks like it might be longer than a minute, but we will get it cut down during editing.

How to use a wireless mic.