8th Grade GOAL: Documentary Self-Evaluation & Trip Reflection

Compose two different blog posts.

For Post #1, answer the following questions in a blog post about our overnight Images of Greatness trip.  We made the following stops:  Des Moines Art Center, Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Drake University, State Historical Museum, Iowa Hall of Pride, IMAX: Journey to Space movie.

1.  What was your favorite part of the trip, and why?
2.  At the art museum, you had to find 4 things: favorite, best example of "art," Why is it ART?, and celebrity award.  Write about them and include pictures if you'd like.
3.  What was the most educational part of the trip, and why?  What is something specific that you learned?
4.  What was the most fun part of the trip, and why?
5.  If you could improve the trip in any way for the group next year, what would you change?  Explain.

For Post #2, embed your documentary into your blog post.  Then, answer the following questions:

• Describe the process you went through to make your documentary.
• What are some specific interesting facts you learned about your topic?
• What are some specific things you learned about filmmaking?
• Which parts of your documentary make you proud?  Why?
• Which parts of your documentary would you improve if you had more time?  Explain.
• What is your advice for the group next year on how to successfully complete this unit and to make stellar documentaries?

7th GOAL: Stop Motion Reflection

Now that you've finished making your stop-motion animated movies, write a reflection on the process.  First, embed your stop-motion movie into a blog post.  Then, in paragraph form, answer the following:

• Describe your movie
• Describe the process of making the movie
• What was the hardest part, and why?
• What are you most proud of, and why?
• During this unit, what did you learn about the process and/or skill of animation?

6th Grade Westward Expansion Projects

You will be creating a VoiceThread project to share your facts.  If you don't have an account already, use your school username and password to create an account for yourself.

For this project, you will need to find AT LEAST 5 pictures relating to your topic.  The pictures will be what the audience looks at while they listen to your comments.  Then, they'll be able to comment on your project and talk about connections they can make between their topic and yours.

Over the course of showing your pictures, your comments need to include the following information:

1. Introduce yourself and the topic you researched.
2. Give at least 5 interesting facts you learned.
3. Explain why your topic was important to the idea of Westward Expansion. 
4. Share at least two questions that you didn't find the answers for or that your research made you wonder.
5. After doing your specific research, do you think Westward Expansion in the United States was a good idea?  Why or why not?  What were the pros and cons?  Explain.

When your Voice Thread is done, click the menu icon for your project on the VoiceThread dashboard page.  Create a post on your blog and share the link.  

As your classmates finish, go into their projects and listen to their comments.  Make comments of your own, at least one comment on each person's project (it's not necessary to comment on each individual slide unless you want to).  Use the following sentence starters to make connections with your own project and to add to the information provided:

• This reminds me of...
• This is similar to...
• I wonder...
• This made me realize...
• I noticed...
• You can relate this to...
• I'd like to know...
• I'm surprised that...
• If _____, then _____...
• If I were..., I would _____...

An example of a VoiceThread project: