Summary
To facilitate engaging vocabulary review, students are challenged to create an animated GIF visualizing a Greek or Latin root. GIF files are online flipbook style animations chosen for their growing online presence and creation options. The research process includes students defining five words containing the root and brainstorming visual representations for three of those words. Students use small group “project-tuning” sessions to pitch their ideas to classmates for feedback and guidance in selecting one idea. The teacher models a variety of animated GIF creation methods, ranging from computer software options to mobile device apps. Students choose the method that best suits their interests and skills to create the GIF animation. The GIFs are shared in Google Drive, formally assessed by the teacher according to the project rubric, while students reflect on their level of communication, problem solving, creativity displayed in the product. Students interact with the GIFs posted to a class blog by viewing and making comments. The blog is shared with all the participating classes, who “vote up” the best GIFs. Finally, to intentionally reach beyond the walls of the classroom and promote literacy throughout the school, the top rated GIF posts are made into daily HCPS School Space announcements, engaging the entire school in visually experiencing Greek and Latin roots.
TIPC Ratings
Ideal/Target – Students use a scaffolded research process to begin the project. Students organize information by selecting a root, identifying its meaning from prior lessons, and researching five words derived from the root. The teacher acts as a facilitator, allowing students to find reliable and interactive website, such as http://membean.com/wrotds/phil-love.
Ultimately, students synthesize the information gathered in the research process into the authentic task of creating a visual representation in the form an animated GIF. Assembling this visual representation as a GIF to be shared on a blog allows students to display and interact with the information. The research and the created GIF are formatively assessed by the teacher using the lesson rubric.
Ideal/Target – The teacher promotes communication and collaboration as a key component toward the task of creating an animated GIF to be shared online. Students selected groups which serve to aid in the brainstorming, “project tuning,” and filming of their own, individual products. The group discusses how effectively a visual could be created for each word and narrows it down to one option. They collaborate without supervision, facilitate their own discussions, and offer suggestions of how to strengthen ideas.
Furthermore, students have several opportunities for reflection in independent, small group, and whole group settings. After the blog is created to host all the posts, students log on to view the work and vote on the most engaging GIFs. This results in those with the most votes being “pushed” to the top of the page. After the project, students reflect on the effectiveness of the communication and collaboration with their small group, using a Google Form..
Ideal/Target – Students think critically and find solutions to problems through the course of the lesson. Students must envision a previously learned concept in a new way. It requires that they “disassemble” old knowledge, create and respond to questions about how words can be visualized, and justify the strategy selected in producing their final product. The project asks students to take a component of language (by definition associated with the written or spoken word) and make it visual, active, alive. Students reflect on their critical thinking and problem-solving, noting possible improvements for future challenges, in a Google Form at the end of the lesson.
Target – This lesson is centered around students creating new ways of visualizing vocabulary. Students synthesize research, collaborative peer feedback, problem-solving, and technological aptitude, into an authentic product that served the entire school community. The teacher models options for creativity and risk for making authentic GIFs. The original products created are meaningful to the student body being used used for exam review and SAT preparation. The lesson focuses on attaching real-world, applicable meaning and context to vocabulary study, in a new visual way. Students are armed with technology-enhanced images, contextual sentences, and related words… not a flashcard and a test grade.
Student Artifact
Mee-Shan and Kelsey like to dance the Macarena in unison.
Unison: to do it in harmony with others, all together at one time.
Latin Root Word: son Meaning: sound
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