OTEN Grant

Rylan Lester

503-944-9401 rylanlester@comcast.net

MAT Pre-Service Teacher Pacific University

Content Area: Primarily reading but can cross over to any subject area

Reader’s Cinema

Instructional Design

“Readers Cinema” is based on the traditional Readers Theater but includes a heavy technology addition. Readers Cinema could be used in any classroom content area. The example below would be in the content area of language arts.

As a class I would:

• Create a rubric of expected components of the project with the class
• Divide the class into 4 to 5 groups of 4-6 students per group
• Have each group choose a piece of literature, utilizing a designated genre (fable, folktales, science fiction, etc.)
• Have each group write scripts, make props, perform the piece for the camera, then edit and present the movie in a class film festival.

Specifically after the children have designed the script from a story and filmed it (this could be as easy as reading a short story for the camera or as advanced as storyboarding their stories and performing in costume with props), they could drop their movie into imovie where they could not only edit it, but add sound, music, voice over, and special effects.

A film festival could include a particular grade level, multiple grade levels, or a whole school focus. A film festival could be an alternative to showcase classroom products to the community.

Learning Goals

1) Learning Goals

The goals would be to take something they are studying (a book, a math lesson, a science experiment, social studies unit, etc), and script, shoot, and edit it into a movie. The movie would provide an alternative mode of demonstrating comprehension, as well as speaking skills, and cooperative practice.

2)Specific Benchmarks

Speaking:

Communicate supported ideas across the subject areas using oral, visual, and multi-media forms in ways appropriate to topic, context, audience, and purpose ; organize oral, visual, and multi-media presentations in clear sequence, making connections and transitions among ideas and elements ; use language appropriate to topic, context, audience, and purpose ; and demonstrate control of eye contact, speaking rate, volume, enunciation, inflection, gestures, and other non-verbal techniques.

Decoding and Word Recognition:

Analyze words, recognize words, and learn to read grade-level text fluently across the subject areas.

Listening to and Reading Informational Text & Listening to and Reading Literary Text:

Demonstrating comprehension

Writing: Planning, Evaluation and Revision

Need for Technology

By adding the technology, and movie aspect makes the lesson more fun for the kids and gives them a deeper understanding of the material by making them focus on it in other ways and from other angles than just performing it.

Assessment and Evaluation

The rubric developed with the class at the onset of the project, as well as ongoing observation throughout the project will be used for evaluation purposes. By the end of this project students will be able to demonstrate the ability to put together a script and perform, film, and edit a movie by presenting a movie at a class “film festival.”

I think that the project is so engaging, fun, and student centered that observation will be a significant qualitative strategy to assess the students’ involvement, interest, and effort in the project. The rubric will be a more quantitative measure.