Goals

Brainstorm ideas for talkshow, receive feedback about ideas, write script

 

Details

Duration: 120+ minutes

Assessments: Student writing, Performance/presentation (i.e. speech, play), Video production, Group work

Materials: laptops

 

Description

For the exhibition benchmarks, we gave students the overall goals of the projects and the due dates in a big picture format. The plan was to get students to figure out what tasks they needed to accomplish more independently. The benchmarks were broken down in to the following:

1. Brainstorming:
In their groups, students needed to answer questions such as:
a. What will be the theme of your show?
b. What kind of show will you have? (The View? The Daily Show? Letterman? etc.)
c. Assign roles, such as Director, Bilingual Host, Spanish-speaking Guest, English-speaking Guest, etc.
d. Answer these questions.
o What interesting questions/perspectives can you bring to the show?
o What interesting information/evidence can you bring to the show?
o What can the theme be? What idea will tie all of the topics together?
o What style show do you like best? Can you "pull it off?"
o Who is your audience?
o etc.

2. The Pitch:
Students needed to pitch their talkshow idea to the teachers for approval. They needed to keep in mind things such as:
o This evening we will be examining the topic of. . .
o Today on our show we will be speaking with...who recently discovered...
o Have you ever wondered why...

3.Script Writing
Students needed to write the script with certain constraints. These are noted on the 2 attached handouts.

Each group had to meet all three benchmarks in order to proceed with filming.

Exhibition Brainstorm
Download (50K)

Exhibition Pitch
Download (49K)

Exhibition Script Writing
Download (26K)

Script Writing
Download (56K)

Author Reflections

The groups worked well together during the first 2 benchmarks. During the scriptwriting part we required 2-3 students to write. Other students were working on the music selection, graphics, etc. Ultimately, we would have liked for ALL of the students to write.

Also, it is essential that talkshows were under 4 minutes. This requires A LOT of script cutting and revision. The shows that were longer than 4 minutes were not as effective and seemed loose.