Persuade Me in Five Slides! Creating Persuasive Digital Stories
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Overview
After students have completed writing persuasive essays, they work to develop their technology skills by creating five-slide narrated presentations that visually and concisely summarize their essays. The students share their presentations with their classmates and discuss their effectiveness.
Featured Resources
Microsoft Photo Story: Students can use this free software program to make five-slide narrated videos.
PowToon: This Web 2.0 tool that requires an e-mail address to create an account is another choice for making the presentations. This option will allow students to work on their presentations outside of the classroom, too.
From Theory to Practice
McLaughlin and Allen believe for students to become active readers, they must be supplied with appealing opportunities to learn comprehension strategies. This lesson includes two of the skills they have identified as important to increase student reading comprehension. They suggest that students need to practice visualizing what is happening in a text; in this engaging lesson students visualize their arguments from their own writing and share their ideas through their selected five images for their five-slide presentation. Also, McLauglin and Allen list summarizing, “extracting essential information—including the main idea and supporting details—from text,” as an essential strategy. Students have the opportunity to practice this skill in this lesson as they concisely summarize their essays in the narration of the presentation.
Common Core Standards
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
State Standards
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts
- 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
- 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
- 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
- 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
Materials and Technology
- Computers with Internet access
- One computer with LCD projector
- Completed persuasive writing essays
Printouts
Websites
This Web site is a source for images used in session one to discuss the power of connecting an image with a stance.
This Web site has effective ads to encourage safe driving. Students in high school can easily relate to these images that send strong messages.
Windows Media Player can be downloaded using this link.
Preparation
- Prepare the computers or tablets for the project. If students are using Microsoft Photostory, download this program to the computers as well as Windows Media Player so that the completed videos will play. If the students will be using PowToon, post the website address on a class wiki or website. If neither option is available, be prepared to tell the students the address of the website.
- Use the websites listed to familiarize yourself with which option you have chosen for students to create their presentation. These websites could also be posted for students to use as they learn the technology.
- Bookmark the Image Websites or post them to a class wiki or website. If those options are not available, print one copy for each student of the Image Websites.
- Make one copy for each student of the printouts Five-Slide Presentation Rubric and Five-Slide Presentation Planner.
- Prior to this lesson, students have completed a persuasive writing assignment to use in session one, such as from one of these lessons:
- Look at the website Fifty Creative & Effective Advertising Examples and/or 10 Creative Safe Driving Awareness Ads. Save to the computer with the LCD projector three to five images that illustrate persuasive arguments, such as encouraging organ donation or discouraging texting while driving.
Student Objectives
Students will
- analyze their persuasive writing.
- concisely summarize their writing.
- create presentations that visually reflect their writing to others.
Session 1
- Divide the students into pairs and invite them to pair-share their persuasive writing assignments. Tell students to share the following with their partner:
- Their topic and their stance on the topic.
- The three most persuasive reasons for their opinion.
- Conclusion including call to action.
- Once students have completed sharing with their partner, project the images you have saved from Fifty Creative & Effective Advertising Examples and/or 10 Creative Safe Driving Awareness Ads. Discuss with the students how combining an image with an opinion strengthensfiv an argument and solicit other examples they have seen of effective advertising.
- Invite students to visualize their arguments and consider how they could make their own persuasive writing stronger by combining their points with images. Explain to the class that they will have this opportunity as they will create a five-slide presentation that illustrates their persuasive writing assignment in a concise manner.
- Hand out the Five-Slide Presentation Rubric and cover this rubric thoroughly so that students will understand what is expected of their presentation. Stress the following points:
- Because of the time limit of two minutes and thirty seconds, concise wording is extremely important.
- Because images will add to the argument, selection of thought-provoking images is crucial.
- Because music evokes emotions, selecting appropriate background music is important, too.
- Because students will listen to each other’s presentations, their recordings need to be clear and read with emotion.
- Hand out the Five-Slide Presentation Planner printout and together read the instructions. As students work, circulate through the room, checking for concise word choice and grammar.
- Assign students to complete the printout before the next session.
Session 2
- Divide students into pairs to peer edit what each has written. Ask the students to consider the following:
- Be sure that the authors’s stance on the issue is readily identified.
- Check that the last slide explains what action needs to be taken.
- Identify two examples of concise word choice in their partner’s writing.
- Suggest two places where their partner could improve their word choice.
- Read the sentences out loud to each other to check on time.
- Check that all sentences are grammatically correct.
- After students have completed peer editing, allow time for students to make revisions.
- Model for students to how to find five images for the presentation using the Image Websites. Demonstrate where students should save their images. Also consider giving students the option of taking photos outside of the classroom and help them move the photos into the chosen software.
- As students work, question them about the choices of their images. Ask what effect the students think the images will evoke and how the selected images support their arguments.
- Model for students the method you have chosen for students to create their presentations. Include adding their photos and recordings to their presentations. Also, demonstrate how to change the volume of the background music.
- Allow time for students to work on their projects. As students work, assist those who have trouble with technology.
- At the end of the session, model for students how to save their presentations so they can continue working in the next session.
Session 3
- Provide students more time finish their presentations.
- As students finish their presentations, pair them up to evaluate each other presentations using the Five-Slide Presentation Rubric. After evaluating each other’s presentation, allow students additional time to make revisions.
- After students have revised their presentations, model for them how to complete the final save of their projects. If they used PowToon, students can e-mail links of their finished project that can be posted to a class website or wiki. Microsoft Photo Story presentations can be e-mailed, saved to the school’s network or saved to a flashstick so that presentations can be easily shown during the next session.
Session 4
- Project each student’s presentation and allow time after each presentation for comments and questions.
- When all presentations have been shared, discuss the presentations with the students. Consider using some of the following questions:
- What made these presentations interesting?
- Which presentations persuaded you? Why were they more effective?
- In what type of situations outside of the classroom would showing a persuasive presentation help you persuade others? Why would this be an effective method for dealing with particular issues or problems?
- How could this project have been improved?
- What did you learn from making these presentations?
Extensions
- Share the presentations with other classes in the school.
- Try making other five-slide presentations for other types of writing.
- This lesson could also be done with the iPad app SonicPics (not a free app).
Student Assessment / Reflections
Possible student assessment include the following:
- Observe student participation in the discussion about the project during the last session.
- Use the Five-Slide Presentation Rubric to assess students’ finished products.
- Ask students to explain the relationship between the images and music they choose for their arguments.
- Review students’ completed Five-Slide Presentation Planner printouts.
I also welcome any other ideas/websites to use on devices or for assignments. I will be teaching English II and English II - Pre-AP...
I also welcome any other ideas/websites to use on devices or for assignments. I will be teaching English II and English II - Pre-AP...
I also welcome any other ideas/websites to use on devices or for assignments. I will be teaching English II and English II - Pre-AP...
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