Storying Our Community Through Filmmaking 
By:  Katie Burrows - Stone

Project at a Glance :

This 12th grade English elective Story-telling unit, draws on multiple Writing Standards, including those for the Production and Distribution of Writing.
       
Driving Question:

How can we show the public the values and strengths of our community?           

Standards:

• W.11-12.4, W.11-12, & W.11-12.7 Research to Build and Present Knowledge.
• SL.11-12.1 -SL.11-12.3, & SL.11-12.5  Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:  Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.

Team / Culture Building:

• The class used a Google-Doc version of Pluses and Deltas to notice strengths and areas for improvement in our visual storytelling techniques.​

Entry Event: ​

• Students were introduced to the essential shots and angles of visual storytelling, and were tasked with creating their own 4 Shot Story.  A simple visual story told through 4 shots of varying perspectives. This helped create buy-in to the fun and creative side of film-making, and allowed students to dive right into becoming producers from the get-go. It also helped them learn how to use or equipment and editing software. 

Stakeholders:

• Fennville School Community
• Superintendent, Dr. Doug Greer 
  
• Human Resources and Communication Director, Casey Boeve 
• School Board

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholder Map - Student reflection:  "It was helpful in order to get a basic understanding of those who would give us more information or about the possible audience of our project."​​

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Interview with Wes Dean, International Videographer
• Jigsaw - Exploring documentary styles
• Interviewed two School Board Members, Superintendent, Dr. Greer, and a Parent. 

Incubation:

• Crazy Eights
• Idea Quota​

• Rule of Thirds​

Checking in:

• Students completed a Google form part way through the project.  The information provided, helped the teacher know what additional resources students needed for their projejct.

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Solution Building:

• Elevator Pitch​​

• Pitch Slides & Critical Friends - To help groups narrow their idea and clarify the focus of their project, each team completed a pitch slide together. Then, students were placed in new groups without their team members where they used the slide to give an elevator pitch of their idea during during Critical Friends. These slides show our process, along with examples of the Project Idea Pitch slides. 

Authentic Audience:​

• Superintendent, Dr. Doug Greer 
• Human Resources and Communication Director, Casey Boeve 
• Principal
• Parents

Final Presentation:

• Students presented their films with a presentation to introduce them to our "judges" - the parent we had interviewed, the superintendent, the principal, and the director of communications. The judges gave feedback to students, and then students were given a final chance to revise their films based on the feedback.
• Film projects

Reflection and Feedback:

• "I love these [videos]! If you could send me the YouTube versions I would like to post all of them on social media and will most likely be using at least a couple of them on our new website."​ ~ Casey Boeve, Human Resources and Communication Director
• "This was my first time teaching this course and running this project. The authentic audience and their participation in the project as interview subjects and as feedback-givers was foundational to the project's success. Students learned how to design a short promotional film, tailored to a specific audience. Students worked together to outline, script, storyboard, film, and edit their films. In the future, I will be looking for even more meaningful authentic audience partnerships for film projects, and collaborating with staff members at the Saugatuck Film Festival."  ~ Katie Burrows - Stone, Educator

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

Katie Burrows - Stone teaches 9th grade English and 11th and 12th grade Audio-Visual Storytelling at Fennville High School.

     "I'm passionate about using PBL in my curriculum because I believe learning is all about the relationship between the daily process of engaging the building blocks of a concept and the culminating project that can be created using those building blocks. PBL allows students to learn through doing in meaningful ways for real-world purposes."