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velvetpageThis lesson works beautifully in the junior grades; I'm using it for a split four-five class. It covers a variety of expectations relating to purpose, audience, analysis, evaluation, and creation of written/media texts.
Materials: at least one copy of Famous Kids magazine, available free at Pizza Hut or movie theatres; check to be sure it has a page of movie reviews in it. Photocopy the movie review spread for the class, or have enough copies available for each student (dangerous - too many distractions.)
Day 1
Show the kids the magazine. Do a brief walk-through, pointing out text features they may or may not notice, and the style of the magazine - bright colours, short articles, lots of pictures, etc. Stop at the page that asks for kids to send movie reviews into the magazine, and tell the kids that they're going to write a movie review to submit to the magazine; it should be pointed out that, while the magazine won't publish all of them, there will be a copy of the review on the bulletin board and maybe in the school newsletter. They can increase their chances of getting in the magazine by writing a really good review.
Ask: what is a movie review? You may want to discuss the word "review" and what it means, and how that meaning has changed a bit in this context. Then turn to the page in the magazine with the movie reviews and go over the text features - short reviews, first names of kids and their home town, pictures from the movies reviewed, two reviews about the same movie within the same box, etc. Tell the kids that their first job is to decide what makes a good movie review, and to do that, they're going to read the reviews on the page and critique them. (You may have to stop and teach the word "critique.") Set up a chart on chart paper or the blackboard, with three columns: Review, Evaluation, Reason. Then choose one of the reviews to model. Write the name of the movie under "review." Read it out loud to the kids while they follow along on their photocopies. Then ask: was this a good, okay, or bad review? Get a few opinions, and if you can get a consensus, write it down; or write down all the opinions. Then get the kids to explain their reasoning. Look for ideas like, "It has lots of/no details about the movie" or "it states her opinion clearly." Write a few of those, ask the kids to tell you the key words (detail, opinion, maybe critique or judgement, personal response.) Don't write those down yet.
Divide the kids into small groups - three people in each is good, or pairs, depending on the size of your class. With one person recording, have them critique each of the reviews on the spread. (Less-able groups could do fewer critiques, or be directed towards which reviews they should critique.) Assess each group briefly to make sure they understand the concept of "critique," and that they're writing down reasons as well as evaluations.
Once they're back as a whole group, write a few of their reviews on the chart paper. (Alternatively, do a jigsaw activity about several of the reviews, until each one has been critiqued by two or three groups.) Try to rephrase their comments to include the words that are going to lead to your criteria in the next part of the lesson: detail, opinion, judgement/critique, response.
Their homework is to decide on a movie they want to review. If they see a lot of movies, they should choose a recent one to review, to increase their chances of getting into the magazine; if they haven't seen a lot of movies, they can choose an old favourite, but they should understand that reviews of old movies probably won't get published in the magazine.
Day 2
Have the kids think-pair-share about the previous day's activity, to remind them of what happened. Bring them around to the point of the lesson: they're going to create a rubric that will be used to assess their own movie reviews, using the criteria they used the day before. Ask the kids about key words in their reasons, and write each key word on a separate piece of chart paper. Tell the kids that these are our criteria. Then divide them into four groups and ask each group to describe what the criteria should look like in a good movie review; that is, a level three or four. Give them about five minutes, then have them jigsaw to a different criteria until every student has looked at every criteria. Bring all four chart papers back to the board and summarize as a class until you have a good description for each. Post the summary on a bulletin board. Tell the students that you will use it to make up a rubric for the assignment, which they will get the next day. (You may decide to have the class make up the entire rubric; I prefer to have them focus on a level three rubric so that they're focused on the things they ought to do, rather than the things they shouldn't do, positive statements being more useful than negative ones.)
If there's independent writing time, they can now begin drafting their movie review. Their homework is to bring in more reviews, from newspapers, the internet, or other editions of Famous Kids or other magazines. Tell them we'll be judging the reviews they bring in against our rubric, to make sure the rubric is right. (You don't need to tell them it's also sharpening their critical thinking skills!)
Day 3
Hand out the rubric you created from their answers. Have the kids critique the reviews they brought in; preferably, gather those earlier in the day and make photocopies for the class. Have the kids choose one "okay" review - a level 2 on the rubric - to revise according to the criteria. They should be able to defend the changes they made. "This review got a level 2 for detail, because it doesn't talk much about the movie, so I added details about two main characters and a bit about the plot." Depending on how much practice your kids need, you can assign this as pair or group work, or allow some kids to work independently while others work in groups.
Independent writing time should involve drafting their reviews, and a few kids may be ready for writing conferences about their first drafts. They are quite free to write more than one review if they finish the first one quickly.
Over subsequent days, finish drafts and do writing conferences.
Day 4 of lessons
Now that they've written their reviews, it's time for peer conferencing. At this point, they're looking to improve the meat and potatoes of their reviews - the ideas. Conventions can mostly wait. Review the rubric. Tell kids that a peer conference is supposed to help kids improve their work, so they're not going to give them a mark. They're going to find one thing that's good, one thing that needs improvement, and make one suggestion for improvement. Try to pair able students with less-able at first; kids are allowed to do more than one peer conference. Make sure they can all see the original level 3 points on the bulletin board, and know that they can use those to help their peers improve their work. Meanwhile, conference with the students who are having the most trouble, or who are ready to focus on conventions.
Kids should be ready to write a second draft by the end of the day; homework is to create their second working draft based on the changes that have been suggested to them.
Day 5
Writing conferences to focus on conventions on second drafts
Day 6
Reviews that are judged to be ready for publication must be typed and emailed. Since the reviews are short - under 300 words maximum - one period should suffice. Inform the kids of conventions surrounding typing - spacing after periods and commas, one space only between words, don't fiddle with the font or colour of an email, etc, etc. After they have emailed their reviews to the magazine, they can fiddle with the font and colour of the title of their review for the classroom copy. You may need to discuss why certain fonts are not suitable for use in closely-written paragraphs, though they may be fine in a title.
Put the reviews on a bulletin board, submit some randomly-chosen ones for the school newsletter, or otherwise publish the reviews in the school.
Materials: at least one copy of Famous Kids magazine, available free at Pizza Hut or movie theatres; check to be sure it has a page of movie reviews in it. Photocopy the movie review spread for the class, or have enough copies available for each student (dangerous - too many distractions.)
Day 1
Show the kids the magazine. Do a brief walk-through, pointing out text features they may or may not notice, and the style of the magazine - bright colours, short articles, lots of pictures, etc. Stop at the page that asks for kids to send movie reviews into the magazine, and tell the kids that they're going to write a movie review to submit to the magazine; it should be pointed out that, while the magazine won't publish all of them, there will be a copy of the review on the bulletin board and maybe in the school newsletter. They can increase their chances of getting in the magazine by writing a really good review.
Ask: what is a movie review? You may want to discuss the word "review" and what it means, and how that meaning has changed a bit in this context. Then turn to the page in the magazine with the movie reviews and go over the text features - short reviews, first names of kids and their home town, pictures from the movies reviewed, two reviews about the same movie within the same box, etc. Tell the kids that their first job is to decide what makes a good movie review, and to do that, they're going to read the reviews on the page and critique them. (You may have to stop and teach the word "critique.") Set up a chart on chart paper or the blackboard, with three columns: Review, Evaluation, Reason. Then choose one of the reviews to model. Write the name of the movie under "review." Read it out loud to the kids while they follow along on their photocopies. Then ask: was this a good, okay, or bad review? Get a few opinions, and if you can get a consensus, write it down; or write down all the opinions. Then get the kids to explain their reasoning. Look for ideas like, "It has lots of/no details about the movie" or "it states her opinion clearly." Write a few of those, ask the kids to tell you the key words (detail, opinion, maybe critique or judgement, personal response.) Don't write those down yet.
Divide the kids into small groups - three people in each is good, or pairs, depending on the size of your class. With one person recording, have them critique each of the reviews on the spread. (Less-able groups could do fewer critiques, or be directed towards which reviews they should critique.) Assess each group briefly to make sure they understand the concept of "critique," and that they're writing down reasons as well as evaluations.
Once they're back as a whole group, write a few of their reviews on the chart paper. (Alternatively, do a jigsaw activity about several of the reviews, until each one has been critiqued by two or three groups.) Try to rephrase their comments to include the words that are going to lead to your criteria in the next part of the lesson: detail, opinion, judgement/critique, response.
Their homework is to decide on a movie they want to review. If they see a lot of movies, they should choose a recent one to review, to increase their chances of getting into the magazine; if they haven't seen a lot of movies, they can choose an old favourite, but they should understand that reviews of old movies probably won't get published in the magazine.
Day 2
Have the kids think-pair-share about the previous day's activity, to remind them of what happened. Bring them around to the point of the lesson: they're going to create a rubric that will be used to assess their own movie reviews, using the criteria they used the day before. Ask the kids about key words in their reasons, and write each key word on a separate piece of chart paper. Tell the kids that these are our criteria. Then divide them into four groups and ask each group to describe what the criteria should look like in a good movie review; that is, a level three or four. Give them about five minutes, then have them jigsaw to a different criteria until every student has looked at every criteria. Bring all four chart papers back to the board and summarize as a class until you have a good description for each. Post the summary on a bulletin board. Tell the students that you will use it to make up a rubric for the assignment, which they will get the next day. (You may decide to have the class make up the entire rubric; I prefer to have them focus on a level three rubric so that they're focused on the things they ought to do, rather than the things they shouldn't do, positive statements being more useful than negative ones.)
If there's independent writing time, they can now begin drafting their movie review. Their homework is to bring in more reviews, from newspapers, the internet, or other editions of Famous Kids or other magazines. Tell them we'll be judging the reviews they bring in against our rubric, to make sure the rubric is right. (You don't need to tell them it's also sharpening their critical thinking skills!)
Day 3
Hand out the rubric you created from their answers. Have the kids critique the reviews they brought in; preferably, gather those earlier in the day and make photocopies for the class. Have the kids choose one "okay" review - a level 2 on the rubric - to revise according to the criteria. They should be able to defend the changes they made. "This review got a level 2 for detail, because it doesn't talk much about the movie, so I added details about two main characters and a bit about the plot." Depending on how much practice your kids need, you can assign this as pair or group work, or allow some kids to work independently while others work in groups.
Independent writing time should involve drafting their reviews, and a few kids may be ready for writing conferences about their first drafts. They are quite free to write more than one review if they finish the first one quickly.
Over subsequent days, finish drafts and do writing conferences.
Day 4 of lessons
Now that they've written their reviews, it's time for peer conferencing. At this point, they're looking to improve the meat and potatoes of their reviews - the ideas. Conventions can mostly wait. Review the rubric. Tell kids that a peer conference is supposed to help kids improve their work, so they're not going to give them a mark. They're going to find one thing that's good, one thing that needs improvement, and make one suggestion for improvement. Try to pair able students with less-able at first; kids are allowed to do more than one peer conference. Make sure they can all see the original level 3 points on the bulletin board, and know that they can use those to help their peers improve their work. Meanwhile, conference with the students who are having the most trouble, or who are ready to focus on conventions.
Kids should be ready to write a second draft by the end of the day; homework is to create their second working draft based on the changes that have been suggested to them.
Day 5
Writing conferences to focus on conventions on second drafts
Day 6
Reviews that are judged to be ready for publication must be typed and emailed. Since the reviews are short - under 300 words maximum - one period should suffice. Inform the kids of conventions surrounding typing - spacing after periods and commas, one space only between words, don't fiddle with the font or colour of an email, etc, etc. After they have emailed their reviews to the magazine, they can fiddle with the font and colour of the title of their review for the classroom copy. You may need to discuss why certain fonts are not suitable for use in closely-written paragraphs, though they may be fine in a title.
Put the reviews on a bulletin board, submit some randomly-chosen ones for the school newsletter, or otherwise publish the reviews in the school.
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Date: 2007-10-17 06:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-17 08:31 am (UTC)