Meanwhile we are constantly surrounded by animated cartoons and powerful digital stories (for example 3D configurators) in our everyday lives. Animation and digital storytelling offer a variety of possibilities for challenging tasks, which students integrate into the “Common Core Standards for English Language Arts”.
Creating content-rich and learning-focused animations and digital stories connects classroom work with the media-rich world in which they live.
While animation and digital storytelling imply a focus on technology, projects in which you are involved are about writing. In particular, the creation of an animation or a digital story offers students the opportunity to write in all three forms mentioned in the standards: Argumentation, information/explanation and narrative.
Here are some examples of writing projects that you can support with an animation and digital storytelling tool such as frames.
Video biographies – informative, explanatory and narrative.
Many students are familiar with documentaries, have seen a football series or a political biography on television, If you ask students to turn research information into a compelling story for a video biography, you can see how the media often blurs the boundaries between information and narrative. Playing with it makes writing more interesting and enables students to be more critical information consumers.
Tutorials created by students – informative and explanatory.
In a reverse classroom, students explore a variety of resources (such as videos, websites, simulations) at home and then return to class to clear up misunderstandings and clarify additional questions with their teacher. One way to help students cement information in the classroom is to write and create their own explanatory tutorials. Primary school teacher Katy Hammack rated this as a good way to practice grammar.
The use and publication of these student produced tutorials shows that you value students’ time and effort and that the work they do in school has meaning.
Public Announcements – Information/Explanation & Argumentation.
The Common Core Standards emphasize a student’s ability to write informed arguments that are critical to university and career readiness. Convincing writing requires students to understand, analyse and learn to think critically. When students watch television or consume online videos that almost always start with advertising, they see numerous public announcements.
A PSA is designed to get people to change their behaviour on important issues, making them relevant practices in argumentative writing. Ellen Phillips and Marielle Crespo, NYC educators, asked their students to raise awareness of garbage in a local playground. The students felt empowered by the response of their PSAs generated by the community, including a local park ranger.
Another great project for arguments, information and even narratives is to have students promote a book they have read through a movie-style book trailer.
Focus on research and information text.
The Common Core Standards for English Language Arts insist that teaching reading, writing, speaking, listening and speaking is a shared responsibility within the school. We see this most clearly in the addition of Reading: Information text standards that apply not only to the English language, but to all subject areas.
Science and social studies, with their wealth of information, data and primary sources, are great places to realize animation and digital narrative projects that require students to “collect, understand, evaluate, synthesize and report information and ideas”.
Historical docudramas – informative, explanatory and narrative.
Primary sources “require the use of technology and are authentic and complex by nature”. Creating a docudrama using primary sources such as letters, diaries and essays from historical figures helps students develop empathy and learn how to add wine “voice” to their stories.
Creating an animated or video interview is another great way to get students to use primary sources and information texts by writing explanatory and narrative texts.
The Common Care State Standards for English Language Arts also state: “The need to conduct research and produce and consume media is embedded in every aspect of today’s curriculum” so that students develop the ability to “analyse and produce a large number of printed and non-printed texts in old and new media forms”.
What could be more fun than animation and digital storytelling?
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