Project Description
By adding a performance element to an activity involving writing, students address additional language arts standards such as oral speaking skills.
Outcomes
- Demonstrate mastery of basic poetry conventions.
- Demonstrate mastery of basic oral speech skills.
Technology Skills
- Use a digital video camera to record a performance.
- Use iMovie for video editing.
- Use iDVD to design and produce a DVD (optional).
Assessment Suggestions
- Standards-based rubrics can be used to assess the use of appropriate elements of poetry (rhetorical devices, meter, imagery, and so on) and to assess oral and speaking skills (voice control, emphatic reading, eye contact, control of fidgeting).
- The iMovie project or DVD can be included in students' portfolios as examples of their work.
Tools
Facilitation Tips
Tech Tips
- A relaxation tip is to tell students that they will be filmed three times from three different angles. Thus, they dont have to get upset if they make a mistake because the video editors can simply take the line from one of the other takes. This technique also makes it easy to create a multiple camera shoot appearance, adding to the professional look of the finished video.
- Fades to and from black can be used to simulate stage lights coming up and going down as is common in live readings. This also provides some tape space for the applause and sound clips so that they dont drown out the actual performance.
- Extracting the audio from the video makes it possible to cut away to audience reaction shots. This enhances the virtual reality and allows for editing out focus blurs, camera wobbles, and other visual blips that occasionally detract from an otherwise good take.
- Several of the templates in iDVD allow you to add a soundtrack background. One technique is to have a few seconds of the same audio file fading out at the beginning of each students video and fading in at the end. A similar simulation can be created by fading applause in and out at each end of the videos.
First published on Mar 21, 2006. Content last updated on Oct 10, 2006.