Lesson Plan Redesign: Version 2

ORIGINAL LESSON PLAN:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UdGmfLp1qf_PfC7mCOjJxLd6Uk628jv7SEg2z2t_vgk/edit?hl=en_US#
If I were to redesign my lesson plan, the central change I would make is to incorporate the use of bitstrips into my lesson's central activity. In the original activity, my instructions to students are essentially to get into groups of 4-5, choose one out of four major events that occur during the scene 4 of Godzilla (1987), and finally, report about this event from the perspective of Oshima Japan’s most celebrated news reporter. Because students were given litmited time to complete this task, the only means by which they could report their story was through an oral presentation. Although this medium is a generally effective means for students to demonstrate their knowledge, it is not the only medium. Other equally effective mediums include storyboarding and, as Gregory Anderson put it, "whereas drawing a storyboard by hand in the classroom has recognised pedagogical benefits," using bistrips allows you to "produce a more professional, novel, and seamless storyboard"

http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/4_Storyboards.pdf

Another bonus to making this change is that it remedies a factor I had clearly overlooked, i.e., differentiated instruction. By providing students with another option, you are awarding them with another outlet and to demonstrate what they have learned.

IN ADDITION...

By having students do bitsrips storyboards, this would address the specific curriculum expectation (of the media literacy strand) of having students produce their own media text in order to demonstrate their understanding of technique and convention. Like all 'texts', visual texts like bitstrips have their own  'language' and conventions in order to convey meaning. Allowing students the opportunity to produce another type of text other than traditional writing, or storyboards, allows them to explore another type of literacy. In other words, it encourages the notion of multiple forms of literacy, such as digital literacy and visual literacy, as opposed to tradition literacy associated with printed texts. It also helps students better grasp the concept of all media as being constructed to suit particular audiences and to convey particular messages.