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I’ve been so busy with end of the year stuff that I haven’t had a chance to blog about our film festival we had two weeks ago at the AFI theatre. Over 200 people showed up to watch the films my 6th and 7th grade film literacy students have created this year. It was a very exciting event for all of us. Marilyn Horowitz, the author of the screenwriting book we use in class, came all the way from New York City to attend!

This was truly a community event. My students, their parents and families, other teachers and school administration all came together to help make our first annual film festival a huge success.  We were able to raise over $1200 through donations. We donated $500 to AFI (see large check above), and will spend the other $700 on new equipment for our program next year. (like more Blue Snowball mics!)

To watch some of the films featured in our film festival please visit our website, Watch Out! I hope we are fortunate enough to have another film festival next year.

Photos by Dan Gross. Used with permission.

A year ago today, one of my 8th grade students, J.R., released his first hip-hop album, Past, Present and Future. It was a 100% original album he wrote, recorded and produced on his own through-out the school year. During the summer, J.R. came back to the school while I taught summer school, and created his second album, Dreamin’ About 2morrow.

I’m glad to say J.R.  has just completed his 3rd album, 3 Times A Charm. Even though J.R. no longer attends our middle school (he’s in high school now), he has been coming back once a week after school throughout this entire year to work on his newest album.  One of the main themes in J.R.’s music is his will to succeed and follow his dreams, no matter who or what gets in his way. J.R.’s school year ended this past Friday, but yet he spent all of today in my classroom burning 80 of his CD’s. Here’s one track off the album:

Matter of Time
You can stream and download all three of J.R.’s albums on his Pure Volume Homepage.

Last year, my students and I started a collaborative digital literary magazine called Space. We managed to publish three issues of original work from k-12 students across the globe. This year, my 7th grade Reading class helped keep Space alive. We’re excited to publish the fourth issue of Space.

This issue of Space is devoted to all things poetry, and has work from not only my students, but students from other countries and from across the United States. We have k-12 students from Vietnam, Australia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Virginia, Hawaii, and Maryland.

We have visual poems combining images and music with words, video recordings of poets reading, hip-hop songs, audio recordings, and even cartoon poetry. I hope you enjoy the work of of these young poets. Let’s do it again next year.

Check out past issues of Space:
Issue #1
Issue #2
Issue #3

My students and I have been working overtime in preparation for our upcoming film-festival at a local movie theater. The 30-second cell phone video shown here was created this week by VHD, of LF10. It’s part of a series of short videos we’re creating to use in the film-festival.

We’re also creating an original three-minute introduction, and a short documentary about making movies in middle school. We have two weeks left to wrap it all up!

What: Film Festival
Where: A beautifully restored movie house (pictured above)
When: June 1st
Who: My 6th & 7th grade Film Literacy students (& LF10!) & their families/friends
Why: To share all the films we’ve created in our classroom this year!

We have three weeks to complete all current productions. It’s major crunch time. Can we pull it off?

“It’s a question of giving yourself permission to use your imagination” - Marilyn Horowitz

One of my 6th grade film literacy classes was lucky enough to participate in a Skype video-conference with Marilyn Horowitz, renowned screenwriter, filmmaker, and NYU film professor, about the challenges of making original films. Ms. Horowitz also wrote How to Write a Screenplay, the book we are using in class to learn how to write and structure our scripts.

A few days before the interview, students brainstormed a list of questions they had about the whole film-making process. They came up with some great questions. The interview lasted for over forty minutes and it was very helpful for all of us.

One of the many things she told us during our conversation was you have to believe in what you are doing. When you’re filming, you have to be convinced that the story you are telling is absolute reality.  She also told to us about the importance of composition, framing, and trying to make your movie beautiful.

I’ve edited the audio from our interview and posted the different questions and responses below as mp3’s. Ms. Horowitz has agreed to Skype into our classroom again next month to give students feedback on their final productions. Thanks Ms. Horowitz!

The Mythic Journey Map

You want simple stories and well-developed characters.

How do you introduce new characters?

Composition, Framing and Acting Tips

Composition, Lighting and Basic Camera Work

Group Conflicts and Creative Control

You have to treat the setting as a character.

Acting and Improvisation Exercies

How do you come up with a good title?

How do you pick a setting that is right for your movie?

This week, my 7th grade Reading students wrote one word poems. We did this same activity earlier this year. We first free write in class about our days and how we’re feeling at that particular moment. It’s a good opportunity for students, and teacher, to clear our minds and write creatively using stream of consciousness. The students are always surprised by what comes out during our free writes and are usually eager to share their pieces.

After students free write, they boil their piece of writing down to one word. Then, I have them look up a synonym for their word in a thesaurus. They are supposed to find a word that they do not know that sounds interesting, and sums up their free write. We take all these new words, create colorful word posters on index cards, and make a short film.

It’s fun, the students enjoy it, and we get a list of new vocabulary words.  We have all these words on our classroom word wall as well. I really like the first word in this video from Cindy: Loopy. I think we’re all a little loopy this week. One day to go till spring break!

My 6th and 7th grade students have been hard at work on their original films. Act One of The Clumsy Ninja (shown above) is just one of the many films currently under production. It’s a tough and demanding process. Students brainstorm, write scripts, storyboard scenes, film, act, and edit their productions in their small production groups. We’ve spent a lot of time this go-around on story and character creation.

We are following a script writing structure called the Mythic Journey Map, created by NYU professor Marilyn Horowitz. We’ll be talking directly with Ms. Horowitz about the whole process of writing scripts and making films via live Skype video conference after spring break!

I wanted to make sure students had solid story ideas before starting their
productions. After the students brainstormed ideas for their films, they wrote
scripts collaboratively using Google docs. Using Google docs was extremely
helpful because students could collaborate and write their scripts outside of
class. The students have done a superb job. It has been amazing watching
them interact on their Google doc pages as they hammer out the rough draft
of their ongoing and evolving scripts.

Everyone has been working very hard, and it shows in their work. I’m looking
forward to seeing all the final productions in about six weeks from now. Please stay tuned…

To watch other student films check out our official website, watCH OUT!

Our after-school stop motion club, The Longfellow Ten, is in the news this week. The Scholastic weblog, On Our Minds, embedded our newest video on their blog yesterday and wrote a post about our club. We also have  a group of new LF10 students in Minnesota that have added a video called Drifting With Alfred. The video is about Continental Drift, the scientific theory developed by Alfred Wegener. We’ve had to slightly alter the LF10 mission statement to now include Science Concepts:

The LF10 is a loose confederation of unknown students in undisclosed locations in cyberspace looking to promote awareness of important literary terms (and Science Concepts!) through absurd stop-motion films.

My 7th grade Reading students and I are featured in a recent article in Edutopia, “High Tech Reflection Strategies Make Learning Stick.” The article is about the power of getting students to honestly reflect on their learning using new technology tools, like weblogs and podcasts. Sam, one of my 8th grade students from last year, was also interviewed for the article. Sam is one of a few student bloggers from last year who have continued to blog on the blogs we set up in my Language Arts classroom.

Here’s a quote from the article from one of my current 7th grade students reflecting on how her attitude toward writing has changed this year: “Before I started this class, writing was my enemy, but now I like writing. Writing all this makes me feel that I know more.”

In other developments, my 7th grade Reading class is finishing up production on their claymation projects. Check out the first completed film from Anthony and Jonathan, “Super Dude and the Plot Diagram.” This week, students will complete their claymations, embed them into their blogs, and then write reflections about the whole process.