Week 7 Review: One Best Thing - Short Film Adaptations
One Best Thing is a collection of iBooks created by Apple Distinguished Educators that demonstrate the use of Apple technologies to transform teaching and learning. In this week's review, I selected one of these short books to explore. As a future English educator, different ways to teach the writing process is always interesting to me. One of the iBooks that I found is titled Short Film Adaptations: The Writing Process Through Film. I love the creative process behind creating movies and this book explained how to use that same process to help your students think differently about writing.
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About the Author:
Nelson Taylor, the author of the One Best Thing that I selected, is a part of the 2012 Class of Apple Distinguished Educators. He has been teaching at the Instituto San Roberto in Monterrey, Mexico for the past four years. After serving two years as a member of the Technology Integration Committee at ISR teaching how to use Apple products, he now teaches eighth-grade English Language Arts at the American School Foundation of Guadalajara, Mexico.
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Short Film Adaptations:
This short book describes an interactive method for helping students become engaged in the writing process. It gives ideas about how to teach students the foundations of film making so they can create their own short-film adaptations. Filmmaking has its foundations in writing, so challenging students to think about writing as a pre-step to filmmaking, opens up possibilities for creativity.
Taylor uses Hitchcock films as examples for the students to consider when thinking about different techniques that have successfully worked in the past as adaptations of short stories and novels. Having the students focus on point of view and angles leads to discussions about the reason the director chose those shots. This helps students to think about creative writing decisions and guides the way that they plan the journey of their video.
This iBook is particularly useful for teachers who are looking for different ways to help their students approach the writing process. I really enjoy the way that Taylor describes the steps that he uses to guide student thinking from paper to film. There is also a list of project resources for teachers in this book that could help in creatively approaching a writing unit.
Taylor uses Hitchcock films as examples for the students to consider when thinking about different techniques that have successfully worked in the past as adaptations of short stories and novels. Having the students focus on point of view and angles leads to discussions about the reason the director chose those shots. This helps students to think about creative writing decisions and guides the way that they plan the journey of their video.
This iBook is particularly useful for teachers who are looking for different ways to help their students approach the writing process. I really enjoy the way that Taylor describes the steps that he uses to guide student thinking from paper to film. There is also a list of project resources for teachers in this book that could help in creatively approaching a writing unit.
Film allows people to break inhibition...it gives students a method of communication that is completely different." |
If you'd like to see more from Nelson Taylor and One Best Thing:
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@burtnessenglish 10/07/2016