Readwritethink lesson on persuasive writing

In our booktalk podcasting assignment, I've been working with teachers and students on how to "sell" a book that they would recommend to other students. During the college football season, the TV was on at home more than I would like. One thing our family ended up doing was talking about funny ads. Now that we can play them on the Droid, we can look up and share a funny commercial with each other whenever we feel like it. We all laughed at the Piggy Geico commercial, and then I had to revisit one of my favorites, the Old Spice commercials, which Solana thought were hilarious.

Our enjoyment of the commercials made me think there must be a way to bring in the creativity and humour of advertising to help students write better leads for their booktalks. One of the teachers I'm working with thought we could introduce the different types of advertising (bandwagon, etc.) as a springboard for ideas. Although the main goal is improving student writing, looking at persuasive techniques in advertising is also an important lesson in critical media literacy.

I haven't found any great lists of advertising techniques for use in the classroom online, although this site's list of examples does use visual cues. My favorite resource so far is a lesson on persuasive writing from readwritethink that uses a more sophisticated description of persuasive rhetoric that is used in advertising or any persuasive argument. It might be adaptable for a younger age group and for the booktalk assignment.

Teacher modeling with podcasts: reflections

Teacher modeling was a key part of podcasting with fifth and sixth grade students this year. This booktalk, by sixth grade teacher Kim Draganchuk on The Loved Dog by Tamar Gellerow, serves not only as a model of an exemplary booktalk (we created a checklist of what students would need to do to "sell" their book to other students), but is also a great example for students of how adults read nonfiction for specific information. My booktalk on Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, served as a model for fiction. Students were motivated by the idea of their booktalks being done as podcasts, especially when we told them their podcasts would be published on the school web site.

Daniel Boom a.k.a. Loudboy model booktalk with flip camera

This is a booktalk a colleague helped me record as a model in preparation for fifth grade students using the flip cams to record their own booktalks. (Thanks, Gwen!!)It was done in one take, so the teacher and I had the students give me feedback on how I could improve it if I were to record it again. Solana loves Daniel Boom and I thought this series might be appealing to fifth graders. I'm still working with my teacher colleagues on the best way to teach this series of lessons as well as deal with the classroom logistics of making the videos with minimum background noise.

Using flip cams for booktalks

This was the first time I tried using flip cams informally with students in groups. They're a great tool for student engagement as well as critiquing, sharing and reflecting. Students were asked to take turns filming each other sharing a book from their independent reading with a group. I realized that we needed to do more modeling and instruction for both the student speaker and the student using the flip cam. (Note the shaky cameral syndrome.) We had a huge issue with noise in the classroom and will need to problem solve around that next time.


The two book choices below struck me because they reminded me of a great presentation by Kathleen Baxter I recently attended on getting boys interested in reading. She advised an audience made up mostly of school librarians to go with the students passions and not expect students (especially boys) to want to read the kinds of books we like.

When I see "BMX" or "sports" on student interest inventories, I can't say I feel excited by the topics. However, after I heard the students below speak about their book selections, I really did become interested in Mat Hoffman's biography as well as the sports science series. This experience reminded me that we're always working on expanding students as readers, but by allowing them to share their interests, they are helping us grow as readers, too. These two students took the assignment seriously and with some more practice, could create some interesting videos in the future. I liked their technique of filming pages from the book: I hadn't thought of that.

Ricky Ricotta

In the fall, we discovered Ricky Ricotta, also by Dav Pilkey. Highly recommend as a precursor to the Captain Underpants series. I think the image of the giant robot companion to the tiny mouse is comforting to children.

Captain Underpants Booktalk

Sorry if you're offended by bathroom humour, but we love Captain Underpants. See brief booktalk below!

Booktalk #3: Ivy and Bean

For Booktalk #3, I decided to show Solana how to edit in Audacity. I thought I would just let her push the "delete" button to be part of the process, but she got the idea right away ("Let me do it!") and quickly began to delete all of the long pauses on her own, hence the slightly choppy sound of this one.

Ivy and Bean takes first place!

Solana and I have read and enjoyed chapter books and series such as Arthur, Junie B. Jones, and Ready Freddy. As an adult reader, I choose Ivy and Bean as my favorite. Solana says, “They’re new” and “They have a lot of interesting things like Ivy flushing a fossil and Bean sticking her tongue out and going 'Pbbbbt' and wiggling her behind at Nancy.” (You have to read Books 1 and 2 if that intrigues you!)

In Arthur and the other series, there are definitely fun moments. However, I always find myself getting annoyed by the author’s voice interrupting the flow to teach the reader a lesson or show us how cute their main character is. I’m also frequently noticing stereotypical characters. (Why do all of the above series have to have an obnoxious rich girl and a terrible bully? Kids can handle more complex characters!)

Ivy and Bean has an authorial voice, but it feels more like entering and enjoying Kidsworld. It’s about friendship, but it isn’t obvious and doesn’t beat you over the head with moralizing. Look for a future Booktalk podcast with more commentary!

Booktalk #2: The Magic School Bus

I see why it's best to do podcasting as a series. Solana was much more confident the second time around and actually kept on speaking several times when I tried to wrap it up.(She's very passionate about the Magic School Bus!!) Those are key points when doing podcasting with students in Booktalk form: enthusiasm about the book they'd like to recommend and doing a series of Booktalks so that they gain confidence and think more deeply each time. I like doing the Booktalk as an interview, since it helps push thinking further, but I can also see students who prefer to work alone doing one as a monologue. I'd like to work with Solana on adding an intro and ending with music or sound effects.
I'm having issues with the volumes in both podcasts--not sure if it was our mic?

Booktalk #1 Wayside School

Solana and I have decided to start a "Booktalk" podcast. I was a bit annoyed that I couldn't just attach the podcast in blogger as an MP3 file. (I had to use Moviemaker to create a movie first.) But the process was pretty easy and could add dimension to a student podcasting assignment. The teachers and I didn't realize that the saving process isn't self explanatory in Moviemaker, so we needed help with that. (Thanks, Joe S.!)