Webster City Middle School has some movie producers on their hands!
Recently, the 7th grade English Language Arts classes were engaged in a project to use their 21st century skills—creating digital book trailers.
A book trailer is a short visual presentation used to entice someone to read a particular book.
Students had been reading books throughout the year and then chose one they liked especially well. After watching many book trailers, they began the process to create their own.
The first step was to create a story board, which is a step-by-step planning process to sketch pictures and text that will appear in the book trailer. The students used Microsoft Photostory3 to create a “movie” of their book trailer. The program uses still photos, text, recorded voice and music. The students can add transitions and movement to each photo or slide to create the movie. The finished product is saved on the school’s server so that all students and staff can watch them.
Students used writing skills, presentation skills, research skills, and technical skills to create their book trailers. They were very engaged and motivated to work hard and create an effective presentation of their books. Throughout the project, students had a rubric to guide their work, and at the end of the project they rated themselves against the rubric. In this way, they could self-monitor their learning.
Below is one of the book trailers made by a student, sent by Library Media Specialist Sandy Ausenhus:
Teachers Mary Crystal, Craig Signorin, and Jessie Bailey, report that the book trailers turned out very well.
There are some budding movie producers in this group of students!
Ask your student or the 7th grade English Language Arts staff how to view the trailers from the server.
Webster City Community Schools 