Published by edinger June 8th, 2009
in Blog Posts.
Dear Edinger House,
You all took to blogs this year like ducks to water! I can’t believe how easily you learned how to write posts, make links, podcasts, stick in images, and so much more! Hopefully, this won’t be your last chance to blog — in fact, I’m hoping some of you will be able to blog again as early as next year. So today I want you to reflect on the blogging experience. Begin by checking that you have all your posts published. Some of you still have posts in draft that you need to finish and publish. Next go through your posts and think about what you learned doing them. What did you especially like? What did you not like? What were your favorite parts of doing a blog? Would you like to do another blog next year? If so, what would you like it to be? (You might want to link to some of your favorite posts as you do this.)
Thanks for being super bloggers this year!
Ms. Edinger
Published by edinger June 8th, 2009
in Alice in Wonderland.
Congratulations! Your wonderful comics are all now published here! I’m also putting the links to each comic on this post so you can easily go visit them. They are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
Published by edinger June 3rd, 2009
in The Wizard of Oz.
Terrific debate, folks! Tremendous points made by all of you! Now you need to write YOUR reponse to the question in a blog post. You can argue against the resolution, for it, agree with your own statements — or not. Now is your chance to state your own opinion on this important topic.
Published by edinger May 28th, 2009
in The Wizard of Oz.
Okay, you’ve read the book and seen the movie. Now what?
Next Monday you all will be participating in a debate considering whether or not the MGM movie is a good adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz. Proper debating (as done in high school and college debating societies) has a very specific structure which we will adapt for you to use.
First of all, you will be randomly assigned to argue for or against this resolution.
Secondly, you will need to prepare to argue your position at the debate on Monday. Use your books and the list of movie scenes (to jog your memory) to come up with several points in favor of your position. These must be ready by the end of today. (You will have the rest of this period and lab to do them.)
Finally, be ready on Monday to argue your position in the actual debate! We will video it for this blog. At the end of the debate you will write a blog post giving your personal feelings about this question. Will your feelings change after the debate? We will see!
Here are some things to consider when developing your argument:
- Changes
- Things left out
- Characters
- Additions
Published by edinger May 15th, 2009
in Cinderella and Pilgrims.
Today you are going to learn how to record and then create a post with a podcast in it. This will be practice so that next week you will be able to record your third grade buddy when he or she interviews you. Today you will be taught by Ms. Nickles how to do this.
Once you understand what to do, get started — do a brief recording of yourself telling about your Pilgrlm story. It can be in the voice of your character, it could be a piece of your interview, or the beginning of your story. That is up to you. Then this will be embedded into a blog post about this project.
Published by edinger April 30th, 2009
in Blog Posts, Books and Special.
I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.
As you know, that is from the mysterious first note found by Miranda in Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the amazing book I just finished reading to you. It was very cool to sneak peaks at your faces yesterday as I read aloud the last part — you were absolutely riveted as all the different threads were tied up. And so today it is your turn — to write your own letters about this remarkable book — on your blogs. My hope is that you will all write thoughtful and interesting ones that I can mention on my blog so that others interested in how children respond to the book will come to see and read them (and, hopefully, comment as well).
First of all, a fun tidbit. The book takes place, as you know, in 1979 and the television show, $20,000 Pyramid plays a major part in the story. Go here to see a clip of the original show and then come back….
Back? Good. Now here are a few ideas of things to consider for your blog post —we’ll add a few more today as well.
- The title — what do you think of it? Would there be a better one? (One person I know suggested The Laughing Man —what do you think of that?)
- The cover — some don’t like it. Do you? Do you want to draw a better one and post it on your blog? Explain why it is what it is.
- Chapter titles are mostly “Things that…” which is the way to do your answer for The $20,000 Pyramid.
- How did you feel about it being SO mysterious? Were you able to wait until all became clear?
- Veil metaphor — when was it lifted for you?
- Wrinkle in Time
- For kids who are comfortable with many different threads and things going on all at once.
Published by edinger April 3rd, 2009
in Alice in Wonderland.
Starting today you are going to do a series of posts called “All About Alice” in which you will document your work with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Bloggers do this often. These are sort of like columns in magazines or newspapers. Sometimes a blogger will do this weekly so yours will be on Tuesday, right?Now let’s look at one of my series at my blog called “Teaching with Blogs.” After that you will be ready to begin your own series. (Later on you might want to even put in sketches, storyboards, and such to illustrate these posts. Hey — you might even want to do a little interview of your partner as a podcast!)Your first post should have the title, “All About Alice: What I Did First.”In the post I hope you will describe what we have done with Alice so far.
Published by edinger April 1st, 2009
in Alice in Wonderland and Uncategorized.
Yesterday Ms. Feldman gave you a great overview of comics and I think you are now ready to begin your own. Here’s what you will need to do:
- Make a list of ten “scenes” (events) for your comic chapter. (If you have two chapters, you can have up to twenty scenes.)
- Write the text to go with these scenes. You can use text from the actual book (here it is online) or rewrite it. Up to you.
- Do the art for your scenes. You may want to make backgrounds for each scene separately from the characters. You also may want to reuse some of these for the different scenes.
- Scan in all the art.
- Do a story board.
- When you have everything ready you will create a comic using Comic Life.
- And lastly we will combine them in a series of pages for our class blog!
Published by enickles March 31st, 2009
in Uncategorized.
In preparation for your Alice comics, we discussed the format of the graphic novel. A graphic novel is a novel that uses images and words to tell a story. Someone added, “It is almost like a movie split into several parts.”
Similarities between a regular novel and a graphic novel:
- Both tell a (fictional or non-fictional) story
- Both have characters (like actors in a movie)
- Both have a plot and a setting
- Most of the time, they both have words
- Both have creators
Differences:
- Graphic novels use pictures!
- Graphic novels use captions to describe what is happening (settings, background information, or to help express the passage of time).
- They also use speech bubbles when characters are speaking to one another.
- Thought bubbles communicate characters’ ideas.
- Sometimes, speech bubbles are drawn in a way to represent emotions, like surprise, anger, excitement. Sometimes different kinds of speech bubbles are always used with the same characters to represent their personalities. The size, shape, and design of bubbles help to communicate emotions and traits.
- You can show sound effects with images (and words) in a graphic novel.
- Different colors can also convey emotion.
- Pictures and words are enclosed into panels, which may take many forms and sizes. The space between the panels is called the gutter.
- We looked at several examples of how graphic novels mark the passage of time and motion.
- We also examined how to represent the five senses and emotion.
Powered by FireStats