Welcome back! Our big project for the final five weeks of our LA class will be the creation of personalized video book reviews (PVBRs). Students will be identifying one book from their book plan that they’ve really enjoyed over the course of the last six months and exploring it more deeply to share how that book changed the way they see the world. Students need to bring that book with them for class on Tuesday.
Here’s an archive of Audience Favorites from years past to give you a sense of what the final product (due mid-February) might look like.
Creating these PVBRs is a four-step process:
- Thinking deeply and using comprehension strategies to understand the a“soul” of your selected book. We’ll do this by answering 20 questions using a “read this book” sheet. Students will be finding important passages in their books, identifying theme, making text-to-text connections, writing summaries, and more. Some of the questions take 5 second to answer; others will require considerably more time/thinking.
- Generating a script based on the “read this book” sheet.
- Identifying images/video/music/etc. that compliment the audio script.
- Pulling it all together through recording, editing, compilation, and credits.
Step one will take us several weeks. We’ll start by watching a bunch of videos and identifying those elements that create a strong PVBR.
Upcoming due dates:
Every night: Reading 30 minutes
Tuesday, January 7th: PVBR Book — Physical book or Kindle version present at school. (This was assigned prior to winter break. Students will need their book daily for the next several weeks.)
Thursday, January 9th: Book return. I’ve lent a LOT of books out from my personal library — which is wonderful — but some of the books have been out for months. Please check with your student to make sure that any books they are not actively reading are returned to my classroom. (I’m sure there are many library books out too — those should be returned to school library.)
Friday, January 10th: Email Check-in #2 AND Questions #1-#7 on “Read This Book” should be complete.
Friday, January 17th: Questions #8-#15 and #20 due on “Read This Book” sheet. (Not collected)
Tuesday, January 21st: “Read This Book” due at the BEGINNING of class with rubric. This should include a stapled packet with rubric, twenty questions, plot mountain, drawing, and character map. (Students will need to print this out.)
Thursday, January 23rd: Strong Draft of Narrative should be complete.
Tuesday, January 28th: Narrative Peer Critique.
Happy New Year! -JF