Lights, Camera, Action!
"Hello and welcome to Democracy Now!"
For our end of the year project, students have been writing, directing, and filming their own episodes of Democracy Now. Instead of focusing on current events, their episodes focus on the birthplace of democracy itself - Ancient Greece.
The unit began with students applying and interviewing for jobs in each of their "channels." They had four available job opportunities: Producer, Director, Tech Manager, and Reporter.
Students then used hyperdocs to learn about the governments of Ancient Greece and the difference between direct and representative democracy. Each hyperdoc required them to write a short news report - aka an argumentative paragraph synthesizing multiple sources. For their final episode, they completed the Oakland Unified History Writing Task, which evaluates the relative fairness of Athens versus Sparta.
Next, student teams worked together to film their newscasts. Filming took place in the "studio," which sounds high-tech but is actually just my closet with a green screen from Amazon, two desks covered with fabric, a borrowed camera, and a coffee mug. Students were given between 5 and 10 minute "appointments" in the studio, which simulated the real-life urgency and complexity of filming!
Finally, students used the amazing WeVideo app to create professional-looking newscasts complete with music, backgrounds, titles, and more! The app is somewhat complex, so I created a cheat sheet for students explaining step-by-step how to navigate the user interface. Check out some of the strongest examples so far below:
In an end-of-year survey, 50% of students named this project as their favorite. Students enjoyed this project because"you get to act in a real news report," "we learned what fair means and why everyone should be equal", and because we "made a video about Athens and Sparta." This is definitely the closest we've come to authentic project-based learning and I'm looking forward to using WeVideo next year!