Using Short Films in the Classroom as a Stimulus for Digital Text Creation

Reading and creating stories is a longstanding pedagogical approach to literacy learning in elementary school classrooms because stories offer personal and human experiences to which students can relate and respond. Stories, including digital forms such as short films, offer accounts of what it is to belong to a community and its worldviews and practices. Opportunities to identify, challenge, and respond to these views in the creation of their own texts develop in students broadened understandings of themselves and others. This teaching tip reports on Australian grade 6 students responding to messages they identified in a short film. The students used iPads to plan, create, and share stories that convey alternative perspectives on the messages they identified.