Students in Humanities 7 composed argumentative essays around topics that truly matter to them (rubric). After working through the writing process, students celebrated their writing by creating capsulized argumentative pitches with Adobe Spark Video. This is a wonderful way to embed media literacy skills, as well as celebrate and publish student writing.
Media Skills
Loads of media literacy skills are embedded in this project:
- How persuasive media can be constructed (and deconstructed)
- Using public domain and creative commons images and appropriate attributions
- Use of text, images, and music to set tone and communicate a story
- Process: Storyboarding
Resources:
- Multimedia Rubric – Argumentative Pitch
- Storyboard – Argumentative Pitch
- Adobe Spark How To – Google Slide Deck (Web version of Spark)
A Few Reflections:
Adobe Spark Video is a bit glitchy on the Chromebook and works much more smoothly on iPads, using the Adobe Spark app. The app, in general, is quite intuitive and easy to use. I especially love that the images pulled into the app are either public domain or creative commons sources. Not only this, but the app also cites the image sources automatically and drops it in at the end of the video. The music library and themes are perfect, and the limited design choices saves class time in the end, even though students would like more control over color and font choices. Because the students were under 13, we used proxy email accounts for students to post their work. This is not ideal, and we look forward to the fall when we can upload student accounts through an admin panel (thank you, Adobe!). Students are a bit shy about hearing their voices recorded, and it helps if the teacher creates a sample digital pitch for sharing with the students. Finally, for students under 13, don’t forget to obtain parent permission ahead of time!