In Term 1 and 2 students have been participating in literature circles, where they read a novel that they have selected in small groups. Each week students have been reading a chapter and responding to their text through a variety of thinking routines, and share their thinking with the neighbourhood. Over the last few weeks, the Year 4 students have been working on films in response to their Literature Circle novels to further share their understanding. Creating these films have given students the opportunity to develop skills in storyboarding, filming, editing, and using effects in iMovie. Ziyu, Tristan and Archie M have written a reflection on their experience:
Over the last few weeks, we came together in our literature groups and responded to the thinking routine ‘Colour – Symbol – Image’ on the novels we chose in our literature groups. We then created a storyboard to make a short film about our books. We explored a number of different shots that real moviemakers use. For our film, we planned eight scenes and thought about the different props that we would use. We constructed the props together that we would need for our film. Then, we had three sessions to film our short movie. Our movies had to be less than two minutes long. Everybody in our literature groups chose a different character to represent in their film and dressed up as the characters. We learnt how to use green screens and add music and backgrounds. Some groups did all of their filming without a green screen!
Sometimes, working in a group could be challenging. Being with the same people over and over again could get very annoying. Overall however it was a very enjoyable experience!
