Book-trailers

Sarah told me about a readwritethink.org lesson plan involving literature circles through the lens of a filmmaker. I decided to use this idea and well as the regular literature circle roles to build up to my final project; creating book trailers for the young adult novel, "The List."

I would designate two days out of the week to do the literature circles. Tuesdays will be the regular literature circle roles, and Fridays will be the filmmaker roles. Using the regular literature circle roles will help students build on their reading comprehension skills, while doing literature circles through the lens of film is a way to get students familiar and comfortable with elements of film so that they can successfully create a book trailer for the novel. I would also have to front load on components of trailers and mood and its influence on an audience. After having all this information, they can create a book trailer on the novel which would have to include text, dialogue, music, costumes, settings, acting, and rolling credits.

**Each group will contain 5 students; these groups will be the same groups for the final project**

The second part of this project is to write a rationale for the book trailer. The students are to pretend that the rest of their peers as well as the teacher have not read the book, so their book trailer is the first resource that they will see that will inform them about the book. They must begin by giving a summary of the book, and come up with a central theme that will be explicit in their trailer. Then they have to explain how the book trailer does a great job of representing this central theme, and explain why they chose what they chose for the above mentioned cinematic elements and how those choices influence the mood of the trailer and what they wanted their audience to feel. Each group will turn in one rationale, but they must designate certain sections of the rationale amongst each other and explain the reasoning behind the designation. Finally, I will ask from each student in the group to give themselves a grade for the project and a group grade, and explain the reasoning behind the grades (what worked for them, what didn't). These self and group grades will help me so that I can see what each student brought to the group, and what the strengths and weaknesses of this project are so that I can make the necessary changes for the future.

I would have to teach the students how to do a Rationale. Also, to scaffold on mood and manipulation of cinematic elements to portray certain themes to an audience, I would show the students two trailers of one movie... Have you guys ever seen a trailer of a movie and thought it was a movie about identity, but then see another trailer of that same movie, and all of a sudden we think it's a movie about love?

Here's a link to a bunch of these trailers...it's pretty clever!
http://www.nerdist.com/2013/09/the-top-10-best-recut-movie-trailers/


Here's the link to the readwritethink.org lesson:
http://www.readwritethink.org/resources/resource-print.html?id=877

If anyone has any suggestions of more scaffolding that I could include to make sure that students have what they need to successfully complete this project, feel free to chime in. Thanks!

-Ramina Odicho