Multimedia Responses to Content Area Topics Using Fact-"Faction"-Fiction

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

Young learners are very inquisitive and eager to learn about the world around them. One enjoyable way to do so is by reading books that blend fact and fiction, often with humorous results. This lesson encourages students' natural curiosity about spiders and builds on their prior knowledge. After a shared reading of Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin, students work cooperatively using a strategy called Fact–"Faction"–Fiction to identify what they know, gather information, and create their own multimedia diaries using PowerPoint. Although the topic example used here is spiders, this lesson is easily adaptable to any content area topic.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

PowerPoint Tool Tips: This printout walks students through the process of creating a good PowerPoint presentation.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Owens, R.F., Hester, J.L., & Teale, W.H. (2002). Where do you want to go today? Inquiry-based learning and technology integration. The Reading Teacher, 55(7), 616–625.

• Couching literacy activities in the context of something meaningful and interesting to students increases the chance of successful learning.
  
  
• When students use technology to access information, analyze it, interpret it, and represent it in a new way, the computer becomes a conduit for the construction of knowledge.
  
  
• Technologies motivate and maintain student interest, provide unique sources and types of information, and afford opportunities for extending the nature of students' reading and writing processes into multimedia composition and comprehension.

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