Multimedia Project - Fourth Grade: Tall Tales

Dov Rosenberg
Education Portfolio

Multimedia Activity Plans
Fourth Grade: Tall Tales
Objectives
Language Arts (LA)

2.022	2.023	2.024	2.025	2.031	2.041	2.0431	2.046	2.05	2.06	2.07
4.01	4.021	4.022	4.024	4.025	4.028	4.03	4.051	4.061	4.062	4.063
4.064	4.082	4.092	4.101	4.102	5.07	5.0812	5.082	5.09

Technology (CS)

1.11

1.12

2.06

2.08

2.09

2.10

2.11

3.01

3.06

Social Studies (SS)

1.03

1.04

1.05

End Product
A living book of a tall tale, written by students, that takes place in the mountains of North Carolina.

How It Gets Started
The class has already learned about and read tall tales that take place in the mountains. As a group, the class will brainstorm the components of the different tales and discuss their themes. The teacher will then let the class know that they will write a tall tale as a class that takes place in a town in the mountains of North Carolina.

How It Comes Together
Individually, the students will write a persuasive argument explaining why the class should pick a particular theme for the story. Then, the teacher will read the arguments aloud and the students will vote on a particular theme. The students will then be grouped such that one small group will be in charge of the introduction, a larger group in charge of the conflicts, a small group in charge of the climax and a small group in charge of the resolution. Within each group, the students plan their particular section of the story. The introduction group creates their piece first and decides who the characters are, the setting, and the initial problem of the story. Individually and sequentially, one student will write two to three sentences, then the next student will build on what the previous student wrote. This process will continue until all of the students in the group have contributed to the story. Once the introduction is complete, the conflict group begins their work. After reviewing the introduction, the conflict group determines what events will occur during the span of their particular piece. The students are assigned a number and will write the story sequentially in two to three sentence paragraphs. Those students will be paired up (1 with 2, 3 with 4, etc.) such that one student will set up a conflict and the other will explain how that conflict is worked out. Once the conflict group is done with their work, the climax group will work together to write their piece, and the resolution group will work together to finish the story.

Then, each student will draw a picture that depicts the action of the two to three sentences that they originally wrote. Finally, the class will come together to revise and edit the entire story. This will be the first time any student will get to hear the entire story.

How It Gets Finished
The teacher or technology specialist will scan in all of the pictures and then teach the students how to import each image into their own slide of a PowerPoint presentation. After the image has resized to fill each slide, the student will then add the text of the story that corresponds with their picture. Finally, the teacher or technology specialist will import all of the slides into one presentation and use a microphone and the record feature in PowerPoint to record each child’s voice reading the particular passage that they were assigned.