The quickstart way to create booktrailers in the classroom.

Before beginning... Review the skills you want to reinforce with your students

1) Tell students that they will be making a booktrailer for their next outside reading book

2)  Show them a few book trailers  to build their excitement and give them a model.

3)  Pass out the bookmark guide.  Review the elements and explain that they will use that bookmark as a tool to remind them when they read their books to look for the things YOU'LL be looking for when you evaluate them. 

4)  Give them the Rubric (which you can also download as a .xls file) which essentially gives a point system to the content on the bookmark.

5) Have them identify the elements and what we know about those elements from watching the booktrailer.          

          Setting - When? Where? Atmosphere?

          Characters  -  Who's important? What do we know about them?

          Conflict - What are the issues in this book?

          Themes - What are the big ideas?

          Quotes from the book - What do those quotes tell us?

          Reviewer Quotes - How many? Where from?

          Images - Do the images seem to fit? Are they high resolution (sharp and clear)

          Typography - What fonts did they use? Are they easy to read? High contrast against their background?

          Music - Is it appropriate to the mood or feel of the book?  Does it start and end appropriately?

          Sounds - What kind of sounds

Palette - What colors are used?  Do they go well together? Do they fit the mood of the book?  Are they well chosen?  Are there too many... too few?

Timing - Do the slides move at an appropriate speed? Too fast? Too slow? In time to the music? Can you read the text before it shifts

Transitions - Are the transitions well thought out? Watch out for too many different transition styles in one video

Mechanics - Have the spelled their words correctly? Used proper grammar and punctuation?

Creativity -  engaging? unique view? unified feel?

Organization -  Is the information organized so that it makes sense?  Does it look planned out?

Credits - Is all content attributed to its source? 

6) Watch and evaluate one of the booktrailers you've already shown them before.  Have them use the rubric to evaluate the trailer in terms of the elements you'll be looking for and grade it.  Critique the film together.

Now that they know what YOU want and they have a better idea about what THEY will want... they're ready to begin.

7) Have them read a short story from any source you like. I chose Thank You Ma'am by Langston Hughes.  Take them through using the bookmark to identify all the elements for creating a booktrailer for that book.    

8) Now they are ready to read their books and keep track of what they may wish to represent in their trailers

Working in Microsoft Movie Maker