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Daily Lesson Plans

Week One

Day One: Ice Breaker

Assign seats:

There are many methods of assigning seats. Students may be assigned seats based on previous knowledge of students' behavior. If you don't know the students ahead of time, here are two methods for assigning seats:
1. Place cards with shapes on each table or desk cluster in the room (maybe 4 seats per cluster). Pass out notecards with one shape drawn each card to students as they walk in. Tell students to sit at the table that matches his/her shape.
2. Place cards with vacation destinations on each table. Ask students to sit at a table with the destination they like the most.

Give a team building exercise to each table. This should give students a chance to get to know the other students at their table. For example, have students fill out and discuss an interest inventory. Giving each table a mind bender puzzle is also a good way to get students talking in a less personal manner. For example, give students a problem from the Stick Figures section of the Mathematics Get-It-Together book. I usually find some way to reward the teams who solve the puzzle.
As students are working in their groups, this gives the teacher time to walk around the room learning names. Carry a seating chart and write in the names of students and learn them THE FIRST DAY! If you want, have them fill out note cards with their names, hobbies, career goals, etc. and ask them to leave them on the table in front of them. Then you can retrieve their names without having to ask for them or having to call out any embarrassing little-used given names that creep up on the roster.

Demonstrate your knowledge of students' names by naming them without looking at the role. This will surprise your students, and they will be impressed. Well, okay, mine were.
Tell students you will be establishing a contact with a partnership classroom. This will take some preparation ahead of time. Establishing a contact with an overseas classroom, as opposed to another classroom within your own country, is probably more rewarding and exciting, but mailing items takes longer than a contact within your own country. Contact can be in the form of email discussions, video conferencing, or a video exchange. I recommend a combination of all three if you are able to arrange it. Setting up a partnership is really not difficult. About 4 weeks before begining the course, subscribe to the IECC Listserv. This email list has been created explicitly to help teachers arrange partnerships. If you explain the content of your course, you will probably get so many responses, you will have to turn down teachers who want to work with you.
Tell your students where your partnership classroom is located and show a short video about their region, so your students will learn a little about their lives.
Pass out and read a short description about their state, town, or country and locate them on a map.
Ask students to prepare a 2-4 sentence greeting to the partner classroom. They should tell their name, one hobby they have, and may ask a question if they want.
Before class set up a video camera and quick "set" (maybe just a chair with a simple background behind it) and find a volunteer to be the camera operator. Instruct the operator on how to start and stop recording and how to zoom. One at a time, have each student deliver a greeting on videotape. Some students will be nervous to do this, but encourage everyone to take a turn. Allow students to take their turns in pairs if they are too self conscious to speak by themselves.
Play back the video. This allows students to see what they look like on videotape, which will help them later when it is time to produce the news show. Send the videotape to your partner classroom.

Tell students their first project will be to create a 20-30 second stop-motion animation. Students will use clay to create their animations. Tell them they will need to buy modeling clay in the next two weeks. They should not bring it to class until they are asked to do so. Play-doh can be substituted for modeling clay, but it dries up quickly and does not work as well. Modeling clay can be bought for about $2 at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, or whatever department store is nearby.
Go over Claymation Guidelines.
Show samples of previous claymations. If you don't have any, buy one of Nick Park's (Aardman Animation) Wallace and Gromit tapes. These tapes show super claymations. They will give students a very high standard to aim for.
Ask students to find a partner. (I have asked students to pair up with someone assigned a seat next to them but have found I get better results when they can choose a partner from anywhere--of course this messes up the whole assigned seat arrangement.) If there are more than 3 in a group, there are almost always arguments. Be very selective about allowing students to choose more than 3 members for a claymation team. Claymations take about 20 minutes each to film, so think about time constraints when agreeing to let students create an animation on their own.
Before class, hook up the camera to a television set using an RCA cable. This will allow everything you film to be viewed on a TV as it's being filmed. Some TVs do not have RCA connections; you may need to go through a VCR. Many VCRs have to be put on a different input setting in order to display what is being filmed through your camcorder. This isn't hard to do, it's just a matter of learning the correct switch or setting. Set your camera on a tripod, or better yet, a copy stand. Ask students how stop-motion animation is filmed--see if they know. Explain to them that stop motion animations are filmed by stopping and starting recording. While the stop button is pressed (or record is off) you move your actor. Then, when you begin recording again, it looks as though the actor has moved on its own. Use some of the students' objects, i.e. a hat, some sunglasses, a ring, as actors. Film a short demonstration. Show students that they will need a set or background for their animation. They wouldn't want the wall, classroom, or people walking around to show up on their film. I used a regular camcorder to film our animations. I would just record one second of footage before stopping the recording. Then, we would move the actor/actors and film one second again. This takes about 20 minutes to film each claymation. I used two camcorders while teaching Media Production. One camera took 3 seconds to warm up before beginning recording. That means that in order to film one second of footage, I actually had to count to 4 while recording to be sure one second would be on tape. The other camera I used took 5 seconds to warm up. Be sure to check your camera ahead of time. That one second makes a difference in how your final claymations turn out.
Pass out storyboards and explain that students will need to draw the "events" in their animation in the boxes and write a short description on the lines beside it. They will need to have their plans approved before beginning designing a set.

Day Four

Place Claymation Guidelines on an overhead to remind students of what they need to do. Pass out storyboards and ask students to spend some time finding an idea and filling out their storyboard.
Tell students when they are finished they need to get their plans approved. Have construction paper available for those who get their plans approved and are ready to work on their sets.

Day Five

For the next few days, leave the camcorder hooked up to the television. Explain how colors are not always accurately portrayed on camera. Many cameras have a manual white balance setting which helps the camera read the correct color of white. Indoor white looks different to the camera from outdoor white.A white balance setting helps correct this difference. My camera did not have a manual setting for white balance. It supposedly did this automatically. However, at times colors fluctuate. When only red is placed in front of the camera, the red looks dull. But, when I add, blue and white, the red becomes a deeper color. Place different colors of construction paper in front of the camera and show students how the colors look on the TV. Show students also that they will need to build their sets larger than what will actually be filmed. If they build them too small they could end up capturing unwanted background classroom scenes. Leave the camera hooked up to the TV so students can come over and check their sets for size and color as they create them.
Continue working on storyboards and sets.

Week Two

Day One

Continue working on sets.
Ask students to bring in 2-4 photos of themselves. Have them bring in one baby photo and 1-3 photos that show them growing up.

Day Two

Continue working on sets.
Create a photo montage by filming students photos in order. Film each photo for 5-6 seconds and then film each student in real life after his/her photos have been filmed. After class use an audio dub feature--hopefully your camera has one--to dub music over the film. Prepare to show it to the students on the next day.

Day Three

Play back photo montage. Explain that students will also be dubbing music over their claymations, so they should think about what music they would like. This photo montage can be mailed to your partner classroom.
Continue working on sets.

Day Four

Continue working on sets. Some teams should be finished with their sets. Check their sets and be sure to make suggestions if you think they need to add more color or detail. Approve teams who are ready to bring in their clay and begin creating actors. You may want to check out some books on making clay figures from the library and let students use them to generate ideas. Books on dough creations can also be useful. Go over rules about clay use. One of the ingredients in clay is oil. You may want students to place paper under their work area so they won't have to wash the tables. Notebook paper or white posterboard works better than newspaper. The newspaper ink will rub off and turn the clay a murky color.

Day Five

Continue working on sets and clay actors.

Week Three

Day One

Students should all be ready to work with clay. Continue working on actors.

Day Two

Some students should be ready to film. Have students sign up to film. Having students in my room for only 9 weeks with only one or two video cameras to be shared by 30 children, makes it very difficult to allow students to practice video techniques. Students have spent nearly 3 weeks working on this project, and if it is not filmed correctly, all that time will be lost. For this reason, I choose to personally film the claymations. I have the students move their actors how ever they want, but I operate the camera. You may decide to do differently.

Day Three

Continue filming claymations as students are ready. If you want, solicit volunteers to film theirs during lunch or right before school or after school. This can speed up the filming process.

Day Four

Continue filming.

Day Five

Continue filming.

Week Four

Day One

Finish filming claymations.

Day Two

Play back completed claymations. Students will be very excited about seeing them. You may want to plan some reward for all their hard work. This is also a good time to have students write email messages to their partner classroom. Hopefully by now you've gotten some type of response from your partners.

Start out your journalism unit with a discussion of the Freedom of Speech and what it means. Middle school students have many strong opinions on this topic and it gives the teacher a nice opportunity to play Devil's Advocate. Lead the students in a discussion by asking the following questions:
Have you heard the term Freedom of Speech?
Where does this phrase come from?
What is the U.S. Constitution?
What is the Bill of Rights? (hand-out a copy of the First Amendment to students or place it on an overhead).
What does this Amendment say?
Do you think we have "Freedom of Speech" in America? Why or why not? (At this point students will want to tell you that we don't (especially 8th graders) and that we SHOULD have it. Don't allow them to make a Should or Shouldn't judgement yet. Make them explain why they believe we actually have "Freedom or Speech" or why we don't.) Now ask, "Should we have complete "Freedom of Speech" to say what we want?" (It's funny, but the more vocal 8th graders tend to say, yes, but the 6th graders tend to say, no. You will have to play Devil's Advocate to get them to see both sides.)
If the class as a whole seems to agree that "yes, we should have total "Freedom of Speech" ask them what they think of these instances.
Should racist remarks be allowed in the classroom?
Should a teacher be allowed to swear in a first grade classroom?
Is it okay to tell lies and spread bad rumors about other classmates?
If the class as a whole seems to agree that "no, we should not have total "Freedom of Speech" ask them what they think of these instances.
Do you think newspapers should get permission from the person they are writing about before a story is printed? What if the person won't give permission? (Many of my 6th graders will then say, "The story shouldn't be printed.") What if it's a story that is important and the person won't give permission? For example, what if you found out that the principal was embezzling money from the school? Do you think the principal would give you permission to print the story?
Tell students that they will be writing articles for a school newspaper. They will each be responsible for one article, but may work in pairs to write two articles. Tell them to think about a topic and bring ideas to class tomorrow.

Day Four

Give a history of the Freedom of Speech. Tell students about court cases revolving around this issue. I usually mention several censorship cases, for example, issues related to 2 Live Crew and the Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier court case. Make sure students understand that the Hazelwood court case ruled in favor of the school district. It stated that the principal owns a school newspaper and can decide what not to print. This means that schools do not have complete Freedom of the Press that regular newspapers have. You may need to remind them that they will need to choose topics that will be approved by the principal. Explain what limitations they might have. In some cases, students may censor themselves too much, and you will need to explain that it is okay to take risks.
Lay out a big sheet of bulletin board paper on a table in the middle of the room. Ask the students to form a circle around the paper. Brainstorm ideas of newspaper article topics with the class. Encourage them to include all facets of the school. Once the list is finished, allow them to sign up for topics and form pairs if they wish. Limit the number of feature articles. If you include too many, your paper will have no substance. Explain to students that "space" is an issue when it comes to creating a newspaper. Space costs money and we only have so much money, therefore, we only have so much space. Not all articles will be printed. I tell my students this up front and I think it saves hurt feelings later.
Talk about how to write a newspaper article. Pass out the Formula for a Well-Written Article. Tell them that the "lead" is the opening to their article and should hook the reader. It should answer the 5 W's. Tell them about the inverted pyramid. This means that articles should be written with the most important information first and the least important last.

Day Five

Take your class to the library. Read your class an article that includes facts/statistics in it. Ask students how the facts/stats support the article. Ask them where they think the reporter found these facts/stats. Tell students they need to try to find two or more facts or statistics to support their topic. This gives students practice in research as well as adds substance to your paper. If you have a lot of students that wish to do schoolwide surveys in order to get their facts, you will need to prepare a short lesson on statistics and what makes them valid and invalid. Students will want to survey 10 students and form conclusions from that limited data. Find out ahead of time if teachers will allow your students to interrupt their classes to conduct surveys. Some teachers will like the opportunity to allow their students to influence an article in the school paper; others will hate the disruption. I usually limit the number of survey topics I allow students to do (maybe only 1-2 each 9 weeks).

Week Five

Day One

Continue researching and writing news articles. Tell students they will be due in two days.

Day Two

Continue researching and writing articles.

Day Three

Have students exchange newsarticles and ask them to check that the "lead" answers the 5 W's: Who, What, When, Where, Why, sometimes How. Ask them to answer the questions, "Did this article "hook" you into reading more? Why or why not?" You may want to make up a check sheet that they can fill in and return to the owner. Return the papers to the original owners and ask students to revise their articles if it is necessary.

Introduce the next project: a 20 minute news broadcast. Tell students they will be dividing into filming teams of 3-5 students each and filming a 2 minute segment of a school news show. They will learn how to create a T-Script and cue cards. They will plan their production and get to film it themselves. Have students watch a prerecorded video on yesterday's news or a portion of an evening news show with at least one interview in it. Have them fill out a TV News Evaluation. Go over and discuss students' answers to this sheet.
Explain to students that television is a media of close-ups. Ask them why this is so. Ask students how they take pictures with a camera. Do they just wave a 35mm camera around and click as it's moving or do they plan their picture, making sure the subject is centered and is close enough to deliver a nice photograph? Tell them that filming with a videocamera should be done the same way. Students should plan their "pictures". Their shots should be balanced. Have the camera hooked up to the television. Use the microphone to interview students on what they thought of the new program they just saw. Pick a volunteer to operate the camera. Record five minutes or so of impromptu interviews and play it back. Remind the class that the volunteer is new at this, so they don't feel put on the spot. However, you need to critique the filming. Ask the students, are the main subjects visible on the television? Did the camera zoom in or out too quickly? Is the camera zoomed in close enough? Is there anyone blocking the person speaking? Did the microphone pick up any unwanted sounds? What can we do to correct these problems?

Day Five

I usually plan five 2 minute segments for my news show. In between the 2 minute segments, I intersperse the Claymation students created earlier in the 9 weeks. You will also need a credits segment at the end and an opening to your news show. The total length of my segments usually were between 15-20 minutes long.
Write five topic headers for each segment on the board. (...or 6, or 4, depending on how many segments you have.) Some of my topics have been: The Nine Weeks in Review, Weather, Sports, Student Interest, Fashion, Hot Issue (Racism, Sexism, Discipline), and Student Tips, Lunch-Time Opinion Poll. You will need to divide the students into filming teams of 4-5 students and ask them to choose a topic. Then, they will need time to discuss that topic and narrow it down to what they actually plan to do. Pass out a What Are We Doing? Worksheet and give them a two days to fill out this worksheet before they begin preparing for filming.

Week Six

Day One

Give students class time to finish filling out What Are We Doing? Worksheet. Near the end of class, give the class an example of how to create a T-script. A T-script is a two column script (shaped like a "t"). In the left verticle column, have students put the audio. They will need to write what will be heard at any given moment. In the right column, students should put a description of what will be seen. (Or vice versa.) See example of a T-script. Explain to students that they will need to get their T-script approved before they may begin filming.

Day Two

Students should turn in their What Are We Doing? Worksheet and should begin preparing a T-script. Tell students that they will only be alotted two days to film, so they will need to make plans that can be filmed within that time period. I also usually take a day to go over special effects. I show students how they can turn the camera upside down or shake the camera to create simple special effects.

Day Three

Students should be getting their T-scripts approved today and should sign up for filming times. They should begin making cue cards, practicing lines, arranging interviews, and preparing their credits.
My biggest struggle in this class was arranging for students to film their segments without my being there. If you have an aid or a teacher who has planning at this time and wants to help or a high school student volunteer, then you will have a lifesaver who can chaperone the students when they film their segments out of the classroom. Some segments can be filming in the classroom. This way you can monitor their progress and make sure the segment will be useable. However, in order to film in the classroom, your 25 other students must be extremely quiet during filming. This wasn't always easy for me to get 25 students who were used to group collaboration quiet enough for filming. I located a small unused room in the school where I could send my students to film, but without supervision, sometimes the results on film weren't usable. You will have to decide how to tackle this problem. You will also find that students will reach a point where they are all ready to film but, because of supply limitations, have nothing to do but wait until their turn for the camera. In this case, pass out an Extra Credit Sheet.
As students finish filming, they will need a TV and VCR available to watch their videos before filming the next day. You will need to be patient as you watch their first attempts with the camera. You will find a lot unusable and will need to instruct students individually on camera techniques. You may need to arrange for students to come in before or after school to film with you supervising. Tell them you will not use their segment, unless it meets high standards. I would not show a segment that was poorly done. I also would not do the segment for the students. News shows where adults write all of the script are not helping students learn and experience as much as they could. Don't expect perfection from middle school students--allow them to fall down and make mistakes, but on the other hand, demand that they do their best.
If you have five segments, you will need a minimum of 10 days for filming. I always leave extra time in case I need it. You should find that you have from 1-2 weeks left over. Use this time to have a post-production party, learn about the internet, plan a short unit on advertising, create cel animations, or watch a stop-motion movie, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, and read about how it was created. (Ruling, Karl G. "The Nightmare Before Christmas," TCI Magazine (November 1993): pp. 41-46.)

Putting Together Your News Show

You CAN edit a news show with two VCRs or a VCR and your camcorder, but editing equipment would make things a lot easier. I didn't have any editing equipment and had never edited anything before teaching this class. To edit a 20 minute show with 2 VCRs took from 3-6 hours to accomplish. You will have MANY small, 10 second or less clips that will be difficult to edit. You will also have short claymations to edit. You will need to use your dubbing feature on your camera to add music. You may want to have students actually create their own sound track or you can buy copyright-free audio clips. Editing takes a lot of time, but it will be exciting to see your final outcome. You will have to make some artistic decisions regarding how to show the credits and what to use for the show's opening. I usually used a Claymation for my opening, but you may want to have students create one you will be able to reuse. Please make sure your students see their news show before it is show to the whole school, if that is your plan. Your students can sometimes be very self-conscious. They will be excited about being seen on TV but, at the same time, will want to be prepared by knowing exactly what others will see.
When I taught this class, I had MANY questions about how to go about doing what I had to do. Please email me if you need any help.

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Recommended Teacher Resources:

Any High School Journalism textbook (maybe check with your high school teacher, she/he may have an extra book to give you--Thanks Tammy Watkins, Wando High!)

Calhoun, John. "Jurassic Park," TCI Magazine (August/September 1993): pp. 32-37. (Tells about the making of the movie, Jurassic Park.)

Culhane, Shamus, Animation From Script to Screen (New York: St. Martin's Press) 1990 (In-depth covering of CEL animation. Very informative, but becoming dated. Perfect if you want to learn exactly how CEL animation is done.)

Decisions, Decisions: Violence in the Media (Tom Snyder Productions) 1-800-342-0236 (Great computer simulation with a class set of booklets. "Students take on the role of an advertising executive for a company that is sponsoring City Streets, a controversial television special about life in a gang-infested urban neighborhood." Relates to issues of freedom of speech--comes with good worksheets on this topic and a timeline of the history of freedom of speech. As of 9/96, this kit costs $149.95 for a one computer license.)

Finzer, Bill, et. al. Get It Together: Math Problems for Groups (Berkeley, California: Lawrence Hall of Science) 1989 (Nice math problems for group ice breakers.)

Post, Beverly, and Sandra Eads, Logic in the Round (Carthage, Illinois: Fearon Teacher Aids) 1989 (Nice logic puzzles for group ice breakers.)

Rosenkranz, Patrick, illust. Connie Cho, The Classroom Video Producer's Guidebook (Portland, Maine: J. Weston Walch Publisher), 1995 (Terrific book of ideas from producing a music video to video scavenger hunts--appropriate to middle-school aged children!)

Ruling, Karl G. "The Nightmare Before Christmas," TCI Magazine (November 1993): pp. 41-46. (Tells how this first major full-length stop-motion film was created.)

Squires, Malcolm, Video Camcorder School (Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Association, Inc.) 1992 (Helpful book that explains basics of storyboarding and camera techniques.)

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