After exploring Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, students create their own audio dramatization of a text they have read.
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization
Blending the Past with Today's Technology: Using Prezi to Prepare for Historical Fiction
To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.
From Text to Film: Exploring Classic Literature Adaptations
Students create storyboards to compare and contrast a book and its film adaptation.
Great Films and How to Teach Them
Costanzo offers high school and college teachers an updated, expanded edition that contains 80% new material on teaching film, including study guides of 14 new film with relevant ways to engage their students through a medium that students know and love.
Reading Movies and TV: Learning the "Language" of Moving-Image Texts
Introduce students to the idea that movies and TV have their own language and grammar, which gives them special ways of telling their stories.
Profile Publisher
Students use the Profile Publisher to draft online social networking profiles, yearbook profiles, and newspaper or magazine profiles for themselves, other real or fictional characters.
CD/DVD Cover Creator
The CD/DVD Cover Creator allows users to type and illustrate CD and DVD covers and related booklets for liner notes and other information. Students can use the tool to create covers for books, music, and films that they explored as well as to create covers for media they compose individually or as a class.
In 1564, William Shakespeare was born on this day.
Based on grade level, students learn about rhyming structure, experiment with the Shakespearean Insult Kit, or study scenes from Othello and watch an adaptation of that scene from the movie O.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on this day.
Students compare the film versions of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's novels. Students then imagine how a scene in a current novel that they are reading would be filmed.
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929.
Students make lists of their favorite and least favorite movies and brainstorm qualities that make a film good or bad. Next, students write a movie review for a film they have seen.
Star Wars creator George Lucas was born in 1944.
Students use the Hero's Journey interactive to describe how Luke Skywalker meets each stage of his journey, and then brainstorm other works that use the formula.
Walt Disney was born in 1901.
Students describe female characters in Disney films, discuss their characteristics, and write a thesis statement about them.
A Christmas Carol was the first book transmitted over radio!
Students write a script for A Christmas Carol on a level that primary students can read and perform. Older students record the performance and create a website to showcase photographs.
Today is D.E.A.R. Day!
April 12 is known as D.E.A.R Day! D.E.A.R. stands for "Drop Everything and Read," a national month-long celebration of reading designed to remind folks of all ages to make reading a priority activity in their lives.
Music in Our Schools Month is in March.
Students explore the effects of music on a story by reading a story, novel, or play, viewing the musical version, and comparing the two. Students can then select a text read in class and create a musical adaptation.