Appendix F: Elements for Assured Experiences
Oral Storytelling and Drama Through Podcasts
Modified from Traci Gardner Champaign, Michigan http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view_printer_friendly.asp?id=901
ISTE’s Educational Technology standards for Students
1. Creativity and Innovation- Students develop creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processing using technology. Students:
a) apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products,
or processes.
b) create original works as a means of personal or group
expression.
2. Communication and Collaboration- Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
a) interact, collaborate, and publish with peers,
experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
b) communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
d) contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.
3. Research and Information Fluency- Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
a) plan strategies to guide inquiry.
b) locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
c) evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making- Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students:
b) plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.
d) use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.
5. Digital Citizenship- Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:
a) advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
b) exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
c) demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning
d) exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts- Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students:
a) understand and use technology systems.
d) transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.
SDE English/language arts Standards Addressed:
1. Reading and Responding - Students read, comprehend and respond in individual, literal, critical and evaluative ways to literary, informational and persuasive texts in multimedia formats.
1.1 Students use appropriate strategies before, during and after reading in order to construct meaning.
1.4 Students communicate with others to create interpretations of written, oral, and visual texts.
3.1 Students use descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive modes.
3.1 Students prepare, publish and/or present work appropriate to audience, purpose, and task.
2. Exploring and Responding to Literature-Students read and respond to classical and contemporary texts from many cultures and literary periods.
2.1 Students recognize how literary devices and conventions engage the reader.
2.3 Students recognize and appreciate that contemporary and classical literature has shaped human thought.
2.4 Students recognize that reads and authors are influences by individual, social, cultural and historical contexts.
4. Applying English Language Conventions- Students apply the conventions of Standard English in oral, written and visual communication.
4.1 Students use knowledge of their language and culture to improve competency in English.
4.2 Students speak and write using standard language structures and diction appropriate to audience and task.
NCTE Standards (National Council of Teachers of English)
2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
3. Students
apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and
appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with
other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts,
their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual
features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context,
graphics).
4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written,
and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate
effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5. Students employ a wide range of
strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately
to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
7. Students conduct research on issues and
interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They
gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print
and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in
ways that suit their purpose and audience.
8. Students use a variety of technological and
information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to
gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
9. Students develop an understanding of and
respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures,
ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
11. Students participate as knowledgeable,
reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy
communities.
12. Students use spoken, written, and visual
language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment,
persuasion, and the exchange of information).
1. Preparation- Gather audio recording equipment—cassette tape recorders and blank cassette tapes, a computer with audio recording software and a microphone, or an MP3 player (e.g., an iPod) with a microphone. Playback equipment is also necessary, in order to share finished dramatizations as well as to listen to the Mercury Theatre version of The War of the Worlds.
Decide on the short stories or novels that students can use for their dramatizations. Depending upon your resources and the point in the school term, you might choose any of the following options
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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1.a, 2.a, 2.d, 3.a, 3.b, 3.c, 4.d, 5.c |
1.1.1, 1.1.4, 2.2.1, 2.2.3, 2.2.4 |
2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 |
2. Listen to (and read) an audio broadcast.
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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3. Explore the historical and cultural context of an audio broadcast.
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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4. Establish criteria for effective audio storytelling and dramatizations.
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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5. Compose, record and revise an audio dramatization from a short text or a scene from a recent reading. See Appendices B and C.
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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6. Evaluate peers’ podcasts based on student established criteria
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ISTE/NETS |
SDE English Standards |
NCTE Standards |
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1. “Digital Stories are short, personal, multimedia tales, told from the heart. Anyone can make and publish them. They have the potential to be a very democratic kind of storytelling.” –Daniele Meadows.
2. Digital Storytelling can be used to bridge students' personal experiences with the information they are learning in the classroom. It allows them to make connections to the content, which will require them to deeply synthesize the material and format the material into a story from their point of view.
3. Digital Storytelling encourages students to learn deeper because they are able to create a Digital Story that relates ideas to their previous knowledge and experiences instead of memorizing unrelated bits of knowledge (Weigel, 2001)
4. Digital Stories can also become projects that empower and excite students’ imaginations instead of making students feel as if they simply want to "get it done" and feel disengaged (Placier, Fitgerald, & Hall, 2000).
By definition a podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. Podcasts make language arts more fun and accessible for today’s students. They make the words on the written page come alive as students develop their own interpretations of print and nonprint texts in order to better understand meaning and to become creators of knowledge. Audio broadcasts create an intimacy with both creators and listeners (Gardner, 2007). Listeners create mental images to accompany the words and sounds that are broadcast to create a personal connection that no other medium can attain. Bloomfield has a predominantly African American student population whose roots are permeated with an oral tradition. Storytelling as a means of communication develops communication skills because, mentally, it is easier to remember information as a series of events instead of as a set of facts. Thus, oral tradition gives more emphasis to the rhythm of the language, with repetition and short phrases making the stories easier to understand, and in turn to recall from memory. Through oral storytelling students will be allowed access to 21st century skills/hardware/applications as outlined in the ISTE Standards addressed in this unit.
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Student Objectives |
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Students will be able to:
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1. Explore the historical and cultural context of an audio broadcast. Read the following article and discuss. http://jeff560.tripod.com/wotw.html. Using the script; listen to audio broadcast of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds located at: http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ . Then have students complete the interactive War of the Worlds Travelogue located at http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=731&title=
2. Preparation- Create a specific list of stories for students to choose among.
*Create a specific list of stories from students’ textbooks that they may choose among.
*Allow students to choose any short story from their class texts, whether you have read it as a class or not.
* Ask students to choose any event from a novel they have recently read. You might use this option with books recently read in literature circles as a way for groups to share their reading with one another.
*Have students reflect on the short stories and/or novels they have read over the term and choose a story or passage from the list. This option can provide a nice review of readings at the end of a term or year.
*Use the activity as a book report alternative, with individual students dramatizing short passages from the books that they have read.
3. Brainstorm qualities that make stories vivid.
Ask students to brainstorm a list of the qualities that make a story vivid. Write the list on the board or on chart paper. Focus on the following questions:
a. What makes a story entertaining?
b. What makes characters in a story strong and interesting?
c. How does a conflict or problem influence whether a story is vivid and interesting?
d. What are the important qualities of the resolution to the conflict?
e. What makes a setting appropriate?
f. How is the underlying code of behavior best communicated in a story?
g. What are ways to connect to the history of a place or people that make work well in a story?
4. Develop criteria for good stories.
a. Develop criteria for a “good” chocolate chip cookie.
b. Evaluate three different types of chocolate chip cookies based on established criteria.
c. Use method to develop criteria for “good audio stories.”
5. Make copies or overhead transparencies of the handouts: War of the Worlds Worksheet (if desired), Audio Dramatization Rubric, and Audio Dramatization Process. See Appendices A, B, C.
6. Present an overview of the process that students will complete in the course of this audio dramatization project: preproduction, production, postproduction. See Appendices A, B, C.
Preproduction
o Outline the story
o Identify key scenes and characters
o Compose script
o Choose any sound effects
o Practice the script
Production
o Set up equipment (including anything needed for sound effects)
o Record the segment in short segments
o If working online, save often!
Postproduction
o Edit the audio as necessary
o If working online, add any additional music or sound effects
o Review the completed recording
o Publish or share the final piece
7. Outline key elements of the stories. Use Interactive Plot Diagram Tool located at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/plot-diagram/
8. Allow students to share successes and challenges. Provide problem solving help as needed; peer review and feedback.
9. Compose scripts-
· Use model of the techniques in the Mercury Theatre script http://www.mercurytheatre.info/. Remind them to keep in mind the discussion of how information is communicated to listeners in an audio broadcast.
· As students work, circulate through the classroom, providing support and feedback. Encourage students to try out short excerpts from their script for you.
· Allow as many additional sessions as necessary for students to complete their scripts and finalize their plans for their audio dramatization.
· Ask students to come to the next session ready to begin production of their dramatizations.
10. Record, revise, edit, and produce audio broadcast. Refer to number four.
· Explain that students will record their dramatizations during the next three sessions.
· Remind students of any technical details regarding the equipment that is available for their productions.
· Encourage students to record in small segments and, if working online, save often. It's easier to rerecord a short segment if something goes wrong than it is to have to rerecord the entire production. Working in small pieces allows students to save their work often (so that they avoid losing any data is there is a technical problem).
· Discuss any options for editing the recorded audio files (e.g., how to splice smaller segments together, how to add background music if working online).
· Answer any questions and allow students to work freely on their dramatizations during these periods.
· Provide support and feedback during the session. If students run into any challenges that cannot be easily resolved, explain that they can modify the script as necessary.
· At the end of the last session, students should have a broadcast that is ready to share with the rest of the class. If students have created online files, ask that all are published on your network or given to you on a CD or floppy disk before the next session.
11. Recording-
· Set up the technical equipment necessary for students to share their productions (e.g., computers, iPod and speakers, computers).
· Give groups a few minutes to make any last minute preparations.
· Ask individuals or groups to describe their production briefly as an introduction.
· Play the related recording. Encourage audience response.
· Rotate through the class until all broadcasts have been played.
· Ask students to return to the class checklist and assess the work of other groups—which stories were particularly vivid and compelling? why were they vivid and memorable?
· As a final activity, ask student to write a reflection in their journals, focusing on one or more of the following questions:
1. How did the process of creating an audio dramatization of a printed text influence your understanding of the original?
2. What was the most interesting thing about your dramatization of the text, and why?
3. Choose the dramatization of another group or student, and reflect on what made that story particularly vivid.
4. If you were to dramatize another passage, what would you do differently and why? Imagine that you have whatever technical equipment you need to complete your task.
12. Students upload to the web, share and evaluate their peers’ work (using ipods), based on student created criteria. Use Real Audio, MP3, or Broadcast Script, Rhapsody.
13. Students create digital covers, posters to accompany their original work on the internet. Use Interactive tool located at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/cd-dvd/
14. Peers evaluate each others’ work and provide critical analyses and feedback.
1. 80 iPod Nanos retail cost $49 each
2. 20 digital microphones that are compatible to school software ($15 each).
3. Audio Recording software that accessible to CAMS students on multiple machines. Examples: Real Audio, MP3.
4. High-speed internet access
1. Listen to audio broadcast of Orson Welles’ audio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds http://www.mercurytheatre.info/.
2. How to develop criteria.
3. Reading African and African American Folklore.
1. Extra time as needed for project.
2. Modified grading by Special Education Teacher.
3. Selected texts to address reading level.
I make every effort in my teaching practice to offer my students all of the resources that are available to them. What I have discovered recently is that e-Learning is a powerful means for developing critical thinking skills, peer collaboration, and guiding students toward becoming reflective learners. According to Distance Education Report; e-Learning, Blogs and threaded discussions [and podcasts] often have three goals in mind that “accentuate constructivist teaching” (2004):
1. to introduce [sic] students to a tool they may use in the classes they will take in the future
2. to help students develop a sense of themselves as creators of knowledge; and
3. to connect students to a network of peers.
“Class discussions are enhanced through e-Learning. In a learning situation the primary goal of any discussion is to promote thinking. Web-based discussion and production tools provide many ways to increase discussion between class members and faculty. Researchers have found that adding threaded discussion areas to a course increases student motivation and participation in class discussions.
Students can respond at their own pace, they are not intimidated by the immediacy of a classroom real time discussion, and they have access to instructor and peer comments (and in some cases, expert's comments)” (Peters, 2000). Podcasting in particular addresses differentiation by allowing students to work at their own pace to create a product they can be proud of and can be accessed and evaluated by their peers.
This concept has been proven true with my students. By allowing multiple classes to share ideas and to see each others’ work; threaded discussions, and podcasts provide modeling and different points-of-view for my students to consider as they develop their own interpretations of a text or topic.
As seventh grade students; this is, or will be the first time (for many of them) to use electronic communication and production tools in an academic setting. Many of them are familiar with blogging and IM, but our class electronic discussions require them to present their ideas in a more formal venue. Adding podcasting will take e-Learning to a new level as my students become creators of knowledge. I have been impressed with the sophisticated levels of analysis and evaluation I have seen thus far in our discussion; and I look forward to continued blogging, electronic discussions, and the addition of podcasting to stimulate my students’ creative and critical minds.
Blogs, Threaded Discussions Accentuate Constructivist Teaching. (2004). Distance Education
Report, Retrieved Friday, January 05, 2007 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Peters, K.M. (2000). Creative use of threaded discussion areas. Retrieved January 5, 2007,
from BlackBoard Web site: http://www.webct.com/OTL/ViewContent?contentID=898084