Teacher resources » Bring your book to life
Overview:
In this activity, students create book trailers to share their thinking and deepen their understanding of a piece of literature. The process of reading and critically thinking about a book becomes instantly more engaging as students activate their creativity to bring a book to life through video.
Keywords: ELA, Information Literacy, Communication
Good for: Individual work or teams
Grade level: K-5
Skill level: Beginner
Student Instructions
Copy and paste the information below directly into the description box when creating your student assignment, or, use it as inspiration to make your own!
Have your students take a traditional book review project and bring it to life using video.
Get into groups of 2-4 students and discuss the book, story, article, or piece of literature that was assigned for this activity. You will be writing a summary of the book or discussing the story elements for your piece of literature. What do you want to convey/tell your audience about this book or story?
It is up to you to decide how you are going to present the information in your video. Will you give your audience a summary of why they should read it? Will you discuss story elements such as plot, setting, character conflict and resolution?
You will want to make use of images and footage from the stock media library to create a backdrop for your book review, or upload your own media.
Tips to help your instruction in this activity or help to get you started!
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This activity can be used to highlight or show many different ways a student can understand a story. You can use this activity as a summary of a book, to study plot, character development or other story elements.
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Have students self select a book or use this activity as an opportunity to assess comprehension for a whole class book project.
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Using graphic organizers can help students arrange their videos to capture all of the parts of the story you want them to show.
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Having a green screen background can really add flair to this project as you can turn that background into a setting from the story. For an easy to use green screen, try adding a green box to your smart board or promethean board OR simply hang green butcher paper or fabric on a wall.
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English/Language Arts: This activity is a perfect fit for any Language Arts classroom as it takes a traditional book report activity and presents it in a different medium. Learning story elements, summarization, and critical thinking about literature through the creation of a video makes the process novel, fun, and adds a dimension of creativity lost in the traditional methods of presentation.
Information Literacy: Through this activity students learn how information is synthesized and conveyed to a wider audience. Experts across many fields must learn to communicate efficiently to wider audiences that do not possess the expertise that they do. Students in this activity practice crafting a simple summary to entice an audience to read their book!
Communication: Students practice their presentation and communication skills through this activity while learning how to adapt their speech and language for specific audiences.