Grade Level: Middle

Curriculum Areas: Language Arts and Social Studies

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS): Social Studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ideals, principles, and practices in democratic republic.

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE): Students employ a wide variety of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Technology Skill Level: Moderate (Basic familiarity with Hyperstudio tools and digital camera use helpful)

Student Grouping: Pairs or small groups

Materials:

Multicolored clay

Planning templates for creating story board

Digital camera

HyperStudio software

The following lesson was written for fifteen class periods. The project should last three to four weeks. More or less time may be needed for some portions of the project.

Explain to students that they will produce a public service announcement. They will create characters from clay and write an accompanying script for a public service announcement. Their project will culminate with a multimedia slideshow of their message. Discuss various types of public service annoncements and brainstorm a list of important world issues that could be possible themes (stereotyping, drugs, safety, respect, the environment, etc.)

Homework:

Students watch several TV commercials and answer the following questions:

How does the advertiser get the message across?

Why did the advertiser choose this (these) spokesperson (people)?

How does the spokesperson communicate the message? (vocabulary, tone, body language)

Note: Magazine ads are an acceptable substitute if no TV is available.

Share research in discussion. Compose a list of important characteristics correlating with different types of messages.

In pairs or trios, students select themes for project.

Using planning template, students construct a list of descriptive words or phrases for the characters and scene (mood) of the message.

Review proper form for script writing, including stage direction, use of quotation marks, etc. Students begin script writing.

Complete script writing, revise and edit.

Students choose one group member to type script and bring to school hard copy and disk.

Students design storyboards sketching out characters’ positions, motions, and background. Scripts should be attached to story board with dialogue matching appropriate scenes.

Students make clay characters and backgrounds. They are encouraged to bring small props from home, if desired, to enhance their scenes.

Photography sessions: Some photography may be begun as groups are finishing figures and backgrounds. It may be necessary to provide independent work for one or two sessions while photography is completed if students are not comfortable with the use of the camera, including both taking pictures and saving image files.

Instruct students on the procedures of Hyperstudio necessary for this project.

Size cards to full screen size for optimal space

Import backgrounds

Add invisible buttons with automatic timers and recorded sound

Using the Slide Show NBA (New Button Action)

Save to designated folder

Rotate students into computer(s) to create Hyperstudio stacks, with PICTS imported as backgrounds, and invisible buttons on each card.

Rotate students into computers to add sound to their buttons, recording appropriate portions of script for each card in the stack.

Note: This may be accomplished most efficiently at recess time when students will be less self conscious without others in the room.

Add the slide show function to the stack last.

Class views all completed Slide shows.

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