Thursday, February 14, 2013

Common Core- Multimedia?? Photo Essays??

Does your district have a curriculum based on the Common Core?  Are you trying to figure out the standards all on your own?

I don't know if I have told you this, but I am currently writing the reading and writing curriculum for the 5th grade teachers in my school district.

Your first thought is probably, "Wow, that is so cool!"
And it is...
It can also be quite frustrating and stressful.

Are you a 5th grade teacher??
Do you use multimedia presentations in your classroom??
If so, I would LUUUVVVE to hear from you about 


Here is the standard vertically:

At first, we were thinking multimedia meant movies.
With Common Core 5th grade??
Surely not...
So we decided to look up multimedia.
That helped... 
"As the name implies, multimedia is the integration of multiple forms of media. This includes text, graphics, audio, video, etc."

Our reading and writing units of study are closely linked together.  In writing, the standard is narratives.
We want to do something more than just write a personal narrative or a memoir.

So after listening to Matt Glover present on writing workshop tonight he mentioned something that was completely unknown to me.

Photo Essays...  Have you heard of this?  Have you used this?
I understand what they are, I guess. Lol  

This is a definition I found from Digital Photography School website.

Since we are working with literature in reading, we were thinking we could make the writing fictional photo essays, but we are having a difficult time find samples.
And Matt Glover is all about the "Stacks" to create a vision for the students to write.

There is just a lot of unknown...

Have you taught this standard yet?
Have any suggestions for me?

I would love to hear what you all are doing with this.
Thank you :)


  1. My state doesn't use common core, but our standards also include multimedia requirements. We've used Photo Story to have our kids create multimedia presentations with music, text, and photos. They can create narratives that involve movement and they can use music to set the tone. They can type their text or even record their own narration. My 5th graders most recently used the program to create book trailers for their independent reading novels. Multimedia seems a little overwhelming at first (at least to the teacher!) but the kids do so much with it. Good luck!

  2. Thanks for the comment Christie! You are one of the few that don't use Common Core. My district completely dove in this year. Probably will be a good thing in the end but it is quite stressful this year.
    You have such great ideas. I didn't even think about the recording their own narrations and book trailers are such a great idea. You are completely right that it is overwhelming for the teachers more than the students. lol
    Antoinette :)

  3. My school is also transitioning over to common core. It looks like you have done a lot of good work so far. I don't have an answer for your question though. I think there are a lot of questions right now! :)
    Conversations in Literacy

  4. Does anyone have a good list of photo essay books that we can use as examples?

  5. Sue- not that we were able to find. We decided to go with a book of poems, but not poems like diamantes, limericks, bio poems, etc. Poems that go into more depth and have figurative language in them like similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, etc.
    I will let you know if I find anything.
    Antoinette :)

  6. Thanks for providing such a great article, it was excellent and very informative.
    thank you :)