Multi- Genre Project

    One of my favorite children authors is Andrew Clements.  His novels are captivating and mesmerizing to students. In my classroom we have studied a few of the novels in our literary circles.  I wanted to add another one of his novels into my classroom, which prompted the study of the novel, "Extra Credit".  I am hoping to use this multi- genre project in my classroom in the future.  Therefore, I placed all of my projects, as well as a book summary on a website to allow for accessibility for students.
     One of my projects was using the tool Voki to give the characters a "voice".  Voki is a great audio and visual tool that allows you to add voice, through a variety of means, to the character you are creating.  I created a Voki for the two main characters, Abby and Sadeed.
     I also created a Glog for one of the projects. In the story Abby is to create a bulletin board about her extra credit assignment.  Glogster was a great tool that allowed me to provide an image of the bulletin board.
    The next project was a video of my personal experience of learning how to rock climb.  Throughout the story we continually hear about Abby's love of mountains.  In the beginning we are first introduced to Abby when she is climbing on a rock wall at school.  I have always wanted to try to climb a rock wall, but was very afraid that I might fall.  I decided for this project I would take the risk and try something new!  I was so nervous that my hands kept sweating- which is not the ideal thing for rock climbing! However, I did accomplish my task- I made it up the wall (almost to the top!).  My daughter was very generous to capture the moment, which led to the production of my iMovie.
     My next project uses two web 2.0 tools.  I wanted to provide a visual about Abby's love for the outdoors.  The novel goes into great detail about her experiences in the woods. I used the tool, Popplet , to create this visual.  I also added a Wordle of the contents of Abby's green backpack that she brings with her every time she goes out to the woods.
      I also provided a "blog entry" for Abby.  At the end of Abby's experience, she is supposed to write about her experience.  Blogging allows Abby to share her experience with not only her classroom, but the whole world!  The blog shares her thoughts and experiences of the extra credit project.
     The last tool that I used on the website, was a "bonus" feature!  When Abby agreed to do an extra credit assignment, she was to choose a paper out of the box that contained several extra credit choices.  When she chose the pen pal assignment choice, she decided to write Afghanistan from the list of geographic locations.  She chose Afghanistan because of the mountains that they have there.    I decided to create an "extra credit machine" that provides a random choice.
        This project was such a wonderful opportunity to provide a variety of tools to demonstrate the novel of our choice!  This would be such an amazing activity to do with your classroom! It provides a choice for diverse learners to share their knowledge of the book.

      http://extracreditmgp.weebly.com/