Marty Cryer
The Monster Exchange
For this descriptive writing project, students draw a picture of a monster and use descriptive writing skills to write a good description which is then woven into a fictional story. When the writing is finished and ready for publishing, it is uploaded to the monster exchange website where it can be viewed by a partner class. Students in each of the partner classes use the writing to try and re-create the original drawing. The new image is then uploaded so it can be compared to the original. Discussions that follow reflect on what
parts of the descriptive writing helped and what might have beenmissing our needed improvement.
Along the way, students learn about their partner class via discussions, sharing blog posts, connecting through Google Chat or Skype and so on. This year (2015) I was fortunate to connect with a class of students who live on a ship called the Africa Mercy. This ship and its crew of as many as 450 people travels along the coast of Africa giving free medical care to some of the worlds poorest people. The children we connected with are the children of the medical personnel and crew of the ship. At the time we connected with them (April-May), the ship was in Madagascar! Being able to learn about the mission of this ship was an eye-opening experience for my students!
Monster exchange writing from 2013-14
Green Screen Videos
After researching topics related to novels my students were about to read for their book clubs, they presented their information in a video format much like a documentary. This was a short project to help students engage in their books while giving them some background information about topics that were important to the stories.
Although we spent only a week working on this porject, students learned a lot about using text features to find their information, how to efficiently use search results, and skimming strategies. They also had to use writing skills
to write their scripts, consider grouping of information, practice fluency, expression, good presentation skills and camera skills so much more.
This was the first time I had created green screen videos, so I actually took care of the technical part of putting the video and the background together. However, after discovering how easy it is and finding iPad apps that are easy to use. I will have students do the editing next time. These videos were created using a piece of inexpensive green fabric, an iPad and a laptop.