Writing for the Big Screen: Literacy Experiences in a Moviemaking Project

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Language Arts, Volume 89 Number 2, November 2011

Carol Bedard and Charles Fuhrken

Writing for the Big Screen: Literacy Experiences

in a Moviemaking Project

On movie premiere day, Alonso (all names are pseudonyms), a confident fourth grader, made his way down the red car-

pet toward the auditorium, stopping to pose for the flashes of the (faux) paparazzi cameras and to answer the questions of the news reporters (played by school teachers).

One reporter asked, “What are we going to see today?”

Alonso leaned into the microphone and said, “An extremely extreme film that is going to extremely make everybody scrrreeeaaammmm!”

Then another question: “Can you tell me about your movie?”

Alonso responded, “My film explodes with interesting stuff. . . . I thought it was awesome. I think our movie will be the best of anybody’s.”

Alonso and just over 100 urban fourth- and fifth-grade students were about to celebrate their accomplishments as a result of participating in a 20-day, grant-funded, summer enrichment program integrating language arts and technology. Knowl-edge and skills that are vital in 21st-century class-rooms, such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, communication, and collaboration, were key to the project’s design (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009). The project engaged the students in reading chapter books, writing original stories and adapting them into scripts, and turning selected scripts into movies.

In this article, we tell the story of a moviemak-ing experience in which students, including Alonso, built an understanding of how various language arts activities were integrated purposefully to support

the moviemaking endeavor; how several opportu-nities for collaboration impacted students’ writing; and how the experience as a whole broadened stu-dents’ perceptions of writing. We begin by contex-tualizing how literacy instruction has evolved from a writing-dominated, text-driven classroom to a multimodal, image-dominant, big-screen environ-ment. Then we allow Alonso1 to take the stage to talk about his revisions, and we discuss how his writing was selected to become a movie, how group work helped develop his project, and how his movie finally made it to the big screen.

Expanding Literacy for the 21st CenturyWhat it means to make meaning with text has always been a critical issue in the study of literacy and literacy instruction. In her transactional theory of literature and reading, Rosenblatt (1938/1995) described two distinct reading orientations: effer-ent (reading for facts) and aesthetic (reading to participate in an experience). However, Fox (2008) argues that the binary distinctions do not adequately address the multilayered richness of texts in the 21st century, such as comic books. Consequently, we have seen the emergence of a multimodal per-spective—an eclectic approach that acknowledges the role of multiple modes (e.g., talk, gesture, image, sound, movement)—in making meaning of complex contemporary texts.

As image-dominated texts are coming to the fore, educators are recognizing the value of inte-grating technology into the language arts curricu-lum; examples of the critical roles technology can

1The authors were the primary researchers of this moviemaking project. We were assigned primarily to four classrooms. After closely following several groups of students through the entire process, we chose to write about Alonso and his group because we felt these students’ experience was fairly representative of the other groups we observed.

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Copyright © 2011 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

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Carol Bedard and Charles Fuhrken | Writing for the Big Screen

ogy’s integration in literacy classrooms can create dynamic, multimodal spaces for expanding mean-ing-making activities and for building critical 21st century skills.

Reading and Writing toward a Movie Idea This project involved a six-week experience in which over 100 students focused on moviemaking (see Fig. 1). On day one of the summer enrichment program, the 14 classroom teachers told the students they would be working in small groups of four to five to make movies. Understandably, the students were excited and full of energy, but then reality set in: You can’t simply turn on a camera, point it some-where, and presto, a movie magically appears.

Movies are stories told multimodally—that is, those who write, produce, and direct movies draw from multiple modes, including writing, sound, and visual images. In order to have a basis for the sto-ries they would write and adapt into movie scripts, students initially read realistic fiction and fantasy chapter books and studied these plot lines. For example, Alonso, the key participant in this article, chose a fantasy titled Gregor the Overlander (Col-lins, 2003) to inform the movie he would make. It is the story of 11-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister Boots who find themselves in a myste-rious underground world in which humans, rats, roaches, and bats coexist, but not peacefully. Vikus, the leader of the Underlanders, believes that Gregor is the warrior from an ancient prophesy that fore-

play in literacy classrooms have been encouraging. Digital storytelling—the construction, sequenc-ing, and pairing of narration and images—is being used to build conceptual skills, inductive reason-ing skills, and problem-solving skills (Czarnecki, 2009). The use of both narration and images also expands meaning making because each modal-ity more easily conveys certain kinds of meanings (Hull & Nelson, 2005).

Authoring and producing films is being acknowledged as an engaging avenue for allowing students to demonstrate their understanding of a text (Watts, 2007). Other research (e.g., Brannen, 2002) has found that the process of filmmaking builds on the critical stages of the research process (sampling, formulating a hypothesis, analyzing data, express-ing opinions, and presenting findings). Certainly, as technology becomes more user-friendly and afford-able, many technological tools and media, such as blogging, wikis, and podcasts, show promise for additional rethinking and expanding of literacy activities in classrooms (Stephens & Ballast, 2011). Creating podcasts enabled second graders to think critically about issues of fairness and injustice and opened their minds to the idea that texts are socially constructed (Vasquez, 2010). Kajder (2010) sug-gests that because students in the 21st century are multiply literate, educators must work with mul-tiple texts, modes, and media to capitalize on stu-dents’ knowledge in their quest to make meaning of present-day texts. Therefore, this moviemaking project was undergirded by the notion that technol-

figure 1. Overview of moviemaking project

These activities composed the stages of the moviemaking project.

Reading Writing Moviemaking

• Reading and discussing books in literature circles

• Responding in journals and on a blog

• Writing the stories individually• Participating in writing

conferences• Pitching the stories• Revising the selected stories in

groups• Creating storyboards in groups• Adapting stories to scripts in

groups

• Learning about the jobs of moviemakers

• Filming the movies• Revising/editing with Movie

Maker® Software

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students were presented with the task of writing their own stories, this assignment was less daunt-ing because they had three sources to draw from: (1) group discussions in which they co-constructed knowledge of a text; (2) a record of their thinking in the writer’s logs; and (3) the text in which the author richly portrayed characters, relatable conflicts, and other carefully drawn story elements in order to create a story. Such was the value of starting with literature—and a group approach to reading that lit-erature—to drive the creation of other literature; in this case, that meant the students’ own stories.

Still, students needed guidance in thinking about the new stories they were to write—stories that both stayed true to the texts they read, but also departed from them in interesting ways. Enter the “Poster of Possibilities,” a poster displayed in the classroom that provided students with suggestions for adapting their novels (see Fig. 2). Just as students had a choice in what they would read, they also had choices in

tells the Underland’s future. Gregor goes on a quest that may save the Underlanders from the vicious rats as well as lead him to his father, who himself is believed to be in imminent danger somewhere in this underground world. The ensuing battle leaves readers wondering if Gregor, his sister, and his father will return home safely.

As students read and discussed their cho-sen texts in literature circles, they also recorded thoughts, questions, and wonderings about their books in their writer’s logs (Daniels, 2002; Han-cock, 2007)—places where they could write down aspects of stories that they might use for their mov-ies. Following one of his reading sessions with his group, Alonso captured these important plot events:

A prophesy calls for war and a warrior. The council thinks Gregor is the warrior. So they go on a mission to rescue his dad. The group comes to many places to recruit comrades. They reach the DeadLand, rescue Gregor’s dad, and return to Regalia.

Tracking the plot in this way meant that Alonso could return to his chapter summaries to remem-ber the major events later when contemplating his own story ideas. Furthermore, the journal served as a place for recording big-picture ideas that would drive the students’ original stories. For example, as Alonso articulated the conflict, he recorded an emo-tion that later informed the tone he set for the action in his own story and movie:

Gregor and his friends are on a mission to save his dad. He is trapped in the DeadLand. Gregor is in anxiety to save him.

Although we cannot know for sure what Alonso was thinking when he made this edit, perhaps he realized that “shock” is Gregor’s initial emotion, but that it is “anxiety” that plagues Gregor through-out the conflict of the story and until the resolution occurs.

The writer’s log served Alonso well by providing a space for him to record and reflect upon his think-ing, and by the time he finished reading the more than 300-page text, Alonso had pages and pages of “thinking work” recorded in his writer’s log.

Some students initially thought they were going to read a book and make a film that faith-fully followed the book’s storyline. However, when figure 2. “Poster of Possibilities”

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students either individually or in small groups; students read their stories aloud and the preser-vice teachers and students made decisions collab-oratively about necessary revisions. Alonso met with a preservice teacher named Markus, and they addressed a number of matters related to Alonso’s story: clarification and extension of ideas; concern for or awareness of audience; consciousness of the final product; special effects; sources and knowl-edge of the genre.

As Alonso read his story aloud, Markus made notes about whatever came to mind, including the parts that gave him pause. After Alonso finished reading, Markus began by asking Alonso to provide clarification about those troublesome parts. Here is an exchange in which a scene is perfectly clear to Alonso but not to Markus:

Markus: When I was coming across this scene, I did not know what [Gregor] was talking about. Are his friends actually with him? You say Gregor sends them a message so, if you are talking to me right here face to face, would you send me a message?

Alonso: Gregor and Mareth were in a cave, and he sends a message on a cell phone to his friends, so he waits until they show up.

Markus: Why don’t you try to write that? You could fill it out a little more. You can make a note of it to set up the scene so the audience will know.

Alonso: I see. I’m going to change that.

From this short conversation, Alonso realized that the absence of a small detail could puzzle the reader of the story or the viewer of the movie.

Quickly, Alonso and the other students in con-ferences realized the benefit of having an outsider’s perspective, someone who was less familiar with the text than their peers and teachers. In another instance where Markus asked for further clarifica-tion, Alonso’s off-the-cuff description was clearer than the description he had provided in his first draft:

Markus: In describing Gregor’s appearance, you say he turns like his skin. Tell me more about this.

what they would write. Of course, many students, Alonso included, drew on their background knowl-edge that books and movies are often serialized; these students knew immediately that they wanted to write sequels.

Before students put pen to paper to draft their stories, they took time to ponder the strengths of the original books and brainstormed some changes that

they might consider pur-suing in their own stories. Alonso, in his writer’s log, focused on the quali-ties that made Gregor the Overlander appealing to him: “It was full of action and, you know, kind of PG-13 blood stuff. Stuff that I like. Stuff that a lot

of people like.” Additionally, Alonso homed in on a part of the storyline that likely did not feel authentic:

The part in the story I would change is that instead of falling down the hole because of Gregor, all the rats combat to death. Ripred defeats half, the other team fights the rest, but Gregor fights Gorger and Henry with Luxas’s sword.

With this analysis of the original text, students like Alonso had thought through both what they wanted to retain from the original books and some potential starting points for the ways in which their own sto-ries would be different.

With their trusty writer’s logs nearby, their reflections on how they might approach adapting the original story, and their teachers’ minilessons about writing (e.g., using descriptive language; developing the conflict), students worked to com-plete the writing of their first drafts.

The Revision ProcessTalking Through and Revising the First Drafts

While students had the benefit of checking with their peers and teachers during first-draft writ-ing, they also had the opportunity to consult with “outsiders”—preservice teachers from a local uni-versity. Following the writing conference model (Anderson, 2005), the preservice teachers met with


Alonso and the other students

in conferences realized the

benefit of having an outsider’s

perspective, someone who was

less familiar with the text than

their peers and teachers.

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Markus’s direction spurred Alonso to think about the audience in order to detect parts that might need clarification:

Alonso: And here: I mention the prophecy but [the audience] would be, like, “What the heck? You never told me about that before in this story!”

During this interaction, Markus discusses the ratio-nale for reenvisioning the text, effectively broad-ening the focus of the conference from simply improving the writing to helping Alonso become a better writer, a hallmark of the writing conference as advocated by Calkins (2000). Another interest-ing benefit of the confer-ence was that although their conversation cen-tered on revising the story, Alonso kept returning his focus to the final product—a movie—and how the printed word could be translated to the screen. Alonso had put a great deal of thought into consid-ering how his ideas could be achieved:

We will have to use a lot of computer effects. You know, like in the movies, the karate movies, they kind of use slow motion in some of the attacks. We need to do that. Because I will not be able to spin around in mid-air and throw someone against a wall!

In this instance, Alonso considered the practicality of some of the action scenes he has written, such as whether these scenes will require special effects.

As Alonso was envisioning how his words would play out on the big screen, he was conscious of audience—specifically, how he wanted his audi-ence to react:

By the end, I want them to feel sad and expect the next movie [a sequel]. That is why I wrote this right here. I am going to typewrite it on a computer [so the audience sees printed words on the screen]. And also, you know, how in Star Wars, there is a girl and then the guy is far, far away. That is how it will be just at the end.

Here, and in other instances, Alonso showed that as a frequent consumer of media (Prensky, 2001), he has knowledge of the genre of moviemaking from

Alonso: Kind of like his whole body turns purplish white. He is transforming into the dark evil warrior. I kind of got this section about transformation from a video game I have. I thought it would be a cool idea if I mixed both.

Markus: So Gregor is transforming here. See, I thought he was just kind of getting sick-looking. Why don’t you tell your audience that he is transforming into this creature. Let the reader see that Gregor is now the dark evil warrior.

Here, the result of an outside person’s confusion helped Alonso see the need for revision in order to clarify the text for the reader.

It is important to note that many of the points marked for revision were not based on Markus’s con-fusion but on Alonso’s own realizations about the text as he read it aloud. That is, while the students had the benefit of another person’s opinions about the text, the students themselves remained very much in com-mand of the revision process. In one instance, Alonso made Markus aware of something he himself noticed as he was reading his story aloud:

Alonso: In this part here, everyone including Gregor is, like, just wiped out, so I’m going to emphasize that.

In another instance, Alonso looked to Markus to validate his suspicions about a part of the text that seemed extraneous:

Alonso: This. I don’t think this has anything to do with the story. That’s why I’m going to just cross it out.

Markus: Yes.

Upon confirming Alonso’s hunch about the need for revision, Markus pushed the conversation and con-tributed a valid reason for excising text:

Markus: You don’t want to lose that intense feeling that you have going on in the story. You have carried the audience along with you. If you sidetrack them, they would lose their focus.

Alonso: Yeah. Right.

As Alonso was envisioning how

his words would play out on the

big screen, he was conscious of

audience—specifically, how he

wanted his audience to react.

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phrase, and especially with the words “yet again,” he signaled that his movie would be a sequel to the book. He also established Gregor as the cen-tral character who is driven by a personal mission, “rescuing his father is the only thing on his mind.” He tantalized his peers with these words, “A hidden power is among him,” and used hyperbole as well when he wrote, “[I]t may cause great good or the destruction of all.” He concluded by further enticing his peers with the element of suspense: “Mareth and his friends think they know him.” In his delivery, he changed his voice and exaggerated his facial expres-sion when he ended with the simple but powerful words, “Think again!” Throughout the pitch, Alonso identified the setting as an imaginary place called “Underland,” but he also specified a characteristic of the hero—”hidden power”—which clearly helped listeners know that the genre is fantasy.

The pitch was not simply a fun activity to put students in front of their peers for encouragement and appreciation of their creative ideas, although it might have appeared that way to the students. Developing a pitch was an authentic process of moviemaking that required students to draw on their literacy skills, while simultaneously giving teachers an opportunity to assess their understand-ing of the texts (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). After all, crafting a pitch involves a delicate balance of boiling down pages and pages of text in order to home in on the features and details that will pique their peers’ interest, but also creating suspense by not giving away too much. Beyond skillful summa-rizing, students had to think about word choice—specifically, choosing the “right” word to produce a desired effect, whether that was shock or surprise or suspense, as was appropriate for the storyline and genre. And, of course, they had to polish their speaking skills in order to deliver an effective pitch that would have an impact on their audience.

Although each student waited anxiously to find out whether his or her pitch had hit the mark, teachers reminded students that even if their stories weren’t selected to become movies, they would still play important roles in developing the stories that were chosen. How could that be? Enter the collab-orative writing phase of the project.

which to draw as he looks forward to being a pro-ducer of media as a moviemaker. Thus, Markus’s role in the conference shifted to being more of a sounding board for Alonso as he confidently articu-lated his direction and vision for his story/movie.

Throughout the conference, Markus validated Alonso as a writer, pointing out considerable strengths. For instance, Markus stated, “I like how you have the emotion here. You can see how Gregor is feeling here.” Even after the preservice teach-ers were long gone, the students seemed energized from the conferences and readily made revisions to their stories.

Pitching the Revised Stories

Because each student completed a story, the 14 classrooms and more than 100 students involved

in this project had pages and pages of text, all writ-ten with the hope that the ideas would be viewed on the big screen. Unfortu-nately, the students were confronted with a matter

of logistics—it was not practical for every student’s story to be filmed.

Students now faced what professional screen-writers endure in everyday life—having to pitch their ideas in the hopes that studio executives or agents will be interested in pursuing them. Students soon began thinking about how they could make their story pitches stand out in order to “sell” the judges (their peers) on their idea.

Teachers presented a minilesson on the art form of pitching. For instance, they addressed the neces-sity of grabbing the audience’s attention and sum-marizing the story idea without giving too much away. After much careful thinking and practice, Alonso pitched his story:

As Gregor yet again returns to the Underland, rescuing his father is the only thing on his mind. A hidden power is among him and it may cause great good or the de-struction of all. Mareth and his friends think they know him. Think again!

In quite a concise way, Alonso managed to incorpo-rate the elements of an excellent pitch. In the first

Throughout the conference,

Markus validated Alonso

as a writer, pointing out

considerable strengths.

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In the group’s version, Gregor’s confusion is again shown (not told) with the added words, “Where am I???” Details like “Mareth walks toward Gregor” slows down Gregor’s first encoun-ter with Mareth and helps the reader/viewer visual-ize the action.

Alonso’s (Revised) Story Group’s (New) Story

They walked a short way to a prison and Gregor finally sees his father’s face after two years.

Nerissa says, “I will lead you to the prison where your father is.” Ripred says, “Follow me.” They head to Gregor’s father’s hideout. Nerissa says, “Go in, go in.” Gregor walks to see his father.

Clarifying the generic “they” in the original story, the group divides the action between the characters Nerissa and Ripred and adds appropriate dialogue. To increase the tension and add suspense, the group adds Nerissa’s urging, “Go in, go in.”


“AAAHHH!” screamed Gregor. “I’m going to KILL whoever did this!!!” He turned purplish white and his eyes turned pitch black. Midnight purple. Electricity streamed its way out of him. A horrible transformation turned him into a monster.

“AAAHHH!” screamed Gregor. Gregor’s dad had passed away, and Gregor was so enraged that he turned into something horrible: the feared Eco monster!!!

Sensory language was lost in the revision. While Alonso “shows” the transformation in his original story, the group’s shortened version only “tells” about the transformation.

In the first three excerpts, the variety and the depth of revision are evident, such as the group’s decision to include details to clarify the setting and to add dialogue to show a character’s feelings and increase suspense. Such is the strength of col-laboration in action—multiple voices with multiple perspectives rising and joining together to enrich the text. However, in the last excerpt, the revision is not as powerful as the original story because the sensory language and the description of the main character’s transformation are lost. As can some-times happen in revision, some effective parts might be lost while the text is still transforming into a greater whole.

Revising as a Group Effort

When the winners were announced, Alonso counted himself lucky to be one of the 31 students whose story was one step closer to making it to the big screen. Now the transformation from a single story—Alonso’s story—to a shared vision for a story—Alonso’s group’s story—began.

The transition from a single author to multiple authors was almost seamless because the students in Alonso’s group had shared in the reading and dis-cussion of Gregor the Overlander. In other words, the students were working from the same text and therefore had a common understanding of the char-acters, plot, setting, conflict, resolution, and theme. Students huddled together and began working line-by-line through the winner’s story, suggesting, jug-gling, and considering many ideas (often ideas pre-sented in their own stories) in order to select the ones that would best enhance the group story. Stu-dents came to realize that even a small detail could be a welcome addition and strengthen a particular story element.

Following are some examples of the kinds of revisions that Alonso’s group shared and accepted:


Gregor is in his apartment. He finds an open grate with wisps of vapor.

Gregor is in the laundry room doing the laundry. “Where’s the soap?” he says. He sees a bit of mist coming from outside a door. “What is that? Holy smokes, I’m falling!! HHHEEELLPPP!” Gregor starts falling down a tunnel.

In the group’s version, the setting is more pre-cise—Gregor is in the laundry room, not the apart-ment. The addition of critical details—”doing the laundry”; “he sees a bit of mist”—slows down the action and paints a picture of what the main charac-ter is doing. Dialogue is added to show the charac-ter’s confusion and emotions.


He jumps in and a guy named Mareth takes him to the Underland.

Gregor lands on a floor. “Where am I???” he asks. A guy named Mareth walks toward Gregor. “Hello, Overlander. I’m Mareth.”

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story and to anticipate problems before the mov-iemaking process (see Fig. 3). Overall, Alonso’s group’s storyboard is rich in detail. The group fol-lowed a consistent plan of noting what is happen-ing, the special effects, camera positions, and dia-logue. Other features of the storyboard include:

• Purposeful illustrations that reflect the action and special effects that students envision in their heads (“Zoom!” in Frame 1; lightning in Frame 5)

• Labeling of characters (Frames 2, 3, 7, and 8)

• Use of color [in the original] to emphasize important ideas (Frame 4: “Gregor’s dad is no longer with us.”)

Revision happened both in the act of creat-ing and finalizing the storyboard. Eraser marks and scratched-out text is evidence that the group negotiated and revised (Frames 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8). But beyond that, the group was fine-tuning their ideas. For example, in Frame 5, initially only the word “monster” appeared. After some discussion,

Revising while Creating Storyboards

After the groups finished writing their stories, they created storyboards. Storyboarding is picture writ-ing; it is a writing format made up of a set of boxes, and each box or frame is a place for the writer to put information, pictures, symbols, and/or text. Story-boarding as a revision process asks storyboarders to consider how a rich synthesis of information can be achieved by combining pictures with texts (Essley, Rief, & Rocci, 2008).

Storyboarding looks deceptively simple—it seems as though a writer merely places the main events of a story chronologically from start to end. However, along the way, the writer is evolving into a creator—one who must make both text and image-based decisions: What events should or should not be included? How should details be conveyed—as pictures or text? What level of detail is needed to convey those events and ideas? How should gaps in the storyline be addressed? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Alonso’s group used the storyboard to help them record and clarify their thinking about the

figure 3. Alonso’s group collaborates on a storyboard

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tags like “he said” are absent and the character’s name is written in all caps and followed by a colon. For Alonso and his group, the process of changing the story to a script format highlighted the impor-tance of dialogue, directions, and details. Adapting their stories to scripts was the necessary step before filming; students were now ready to make movies.

Filming and Editing the Scripts

When students started filming, they soon discov-ered that moviemaking—creating a visual text—required them to draw on their knowledge of print texts, visual texts (pictures, videos), audio texts (music, sound effects), and dramatic production (acting, building sets, assembling costumes).

In the act of filming, students became aware of various shortcomings in their scripts that needed to be adjusted. There were times in which actors seemed puzzled about how to read a line, camera operators did not zoom in to capture a particular expression, and directors became frustrated when scenes went on too long and lost their impact. Often-times, students realized that what they pictured in their minds had not yet been conveyed adequately in the scripts. Alonso and his moviemaking group had to fill in the gaps in the script by thinking on their feet, continually adding directions for the camera operators or extending dialogue for the actors:

Original Script Revised during Filming

Luxa: Is this yours?

Mareth: Is this yours?

He held out a blue keychain.

Gregor: That’s my dad’s!

Mareth: We have something you might want.

Camera focuses on Gregor who is weak and sitting on the ground.

Gregor: Like what?

Luxa: Is this yours?

Mareth holds out a blue key chain.

Gregor: That’s my dad’s!

Once all scenes had been filmed, some students huddled around the computer screen as scenes were sequenced; others had on headphones, searching for the perfect song to enhance a particular scene; still others were adding voice-overs and text as necessary scene transitions. These tools of technol-ogy created a continual process of revision that stu-dents saw as relevant and necessary to producing a

another group member added the words, “Gregor turns into a” before the word “monster.” Similarly, in Frame 6, the title “Army of RATS” was written, and someone added the word “coming.” This kind of joint effort resulted in a precisely detailed story-board, making it a valuable resource to be consulted during scriptwriting and filming.

Writing Scripts, Filming a MovieAdapting Group Stories to Scripts

Because writing a script involves more than simply typing up a story verbatim in a different form, stu-dents had to learn how to adapt the genre of fiction to the genre of drama. Using actual screenplays that we found online, teachers taught minilessons about the elements and structure of drama and provided scriptwriting software that they also found online. Students learned terminology specific to screen-writing and incorporated these elements as they created their scripts. For instance, students were taught that scripts are written in the present tense, descriptions are provided about what characters do, and settings are described through abbreviations such as INT (interior) and EXT (exterior).

Alonso’s group’s script showed evidence of incorporating this new genre knowledge. Their script starts this way:

Int. Laundry Room

Gregor is in the laundry room doing the laundry.Gregor: Where’s the soap?

He sees a bit of mist coming from the outside a door.

Gregor: What is that? Holy smokes, I’m falling!! HHHHHEEEELLLLPPPP!!!!!!!!

Gregor starts falling down a tunnel.

Gregor: AAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Gregor lands on a floor.

The script is accurately formatted and begins with genre-specific details such as INT to indi-cate an interior location. Descriptions of the action (“Gregor is in the laundry room doing laundry”) and dialogue (“Where’s the soap?”) are present. The script is accurately punctuated, in that dialogue

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the whole thing.” Clearly, the students were anxious about how their work would be received by their peers, which ultimately affected their decisions about revision.

Creating a visual text opened up spaces for students to integrate their knowledge of print text skills—composing and revising/editing—with 21st century skills—selecting tools and planning how to spatially and temporally place ideas (O’Brien & Scharber, 2008).

Closing ThoughtsAlthough the setting was an enrichment program during the summer, the curriculum could have been implemented during the academic year. In fact, this

high-quality product. One group member made this point, “I’ve learned a bunch of stuff like sometimes you cut or add a scene to make [the movie] better.”

Students may not have realized it, but creating a visual text required them to use their written com-position skills of sequencing, logic, elaboration, and editing.

As students were engaged in the processes of filming and editing, the premiere of their finished movies was definitely on their minds. Conse-quently, attention to audience was a concern. For instance, Alonso and his group wanted their movie to be the best and, as a result, they made decisions to try to have the most impact on viewers. Alonso kept encouraging his group to “add more juice to

MoRE RESouRCES foR MoVIEMAKINg

As students prepare to make their movies, first they can read a selected text and participate in literature circles. In the

ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan “Literature Circle Roles Reframed: Reading as a film Crew,” film production roles are

substituted for the traditional literature circle roles. After reviewing film production roles—such as director, casting

director, and set designer—students work together in cooperative groups to read and discuss a piece of literature,

each assuming a film production role.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/literature-circle-roles-reframed-877.html

Encourage students to take on the role of the director of a movie in the ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan “you Know

the Movie Is Coming—Now what?” After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with director’s eyes,

considering such issues as which scenes require a close-up of the main character and when the camera should zoom

out to see the entire set. While reading the text, students record their scenes on a bookmark. All of these activities are

completed in anticipation of viewing the movie version of a favorite book.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/know-movie-coming-what-854.html

When the films are completed, students can create and illustrate a DVD cover and related booklets for liner notes and

other information. Students can use the ReadWriteThink.org CD/DVD Cover Creator to create covers for books, music,

and films that they explored, as well as to create covers for media they compose individually or as a class. Students can

use text tools to add formatting to their titles and notes, add shading to background areas of the covers and booklets,

and draw original images to illustrate their covers and booklets.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/cover-creator-30065.html

After students watch their films, they can compare and contrast the books with their movie counterparts. The process

of comparing and contrasting teaches students to think critically about different forms of media presented to them.

Learn more in the ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan, “get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies.”

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/reel-scoop-comparing-books-46.html

—Lisa Fink

www.readwritethink.org

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Another strength of the curriculum design was that while the project’s literacy activities of reading, writing, and moviemaking were planned, the stu-dents worked in dynamic, open-ended, multimodal spaces that presented challenges through which they could build and sharpen critical 21st century skills, such as problem solving, decision making, interpersonal skills/collaboration, and creativity. That is, making a (very) low-budget movie required students to think creatively to solve problems. As an example, when students couldn’t gain permission to use an actual school bus, they made one of paper, working together to figure out the dimensions that would best make the bus appear realistic on screen. Almost all groups learned some real-world, workplace strategies when the tight filming timeline caused them to fall behind schedule; some groups struggled with strategies for getting back on track, but eventually learned that cutting out nonessential tasks and recruiting help from other groups were effective solutions.

Some problems were more complex, requir-ing the use of technological tools. For instance, the moviemakers learned to use narration and music to create seamless scene transitions, and when Alonso’s group used slow-motion technology to enhance action scenes, another group took notice and asked for help learning the technique. Finding solutions like these made the moviemakers feel that their products were less amateurish and more like real Hollywood films.

Clearly, writing for the screen offered students some new processes and strategies in their roles as readers and writers as well as future producers of multimedia (Cohen & Cowen, 2011). Likewise, because moviemaking is the creation of a multi-modal text, students had the opportunity to view the world from multiple perspectives. As Kress (2003) explained, “‘The world narrated’ is a dif-ferent world to ‘the world depicted and displayed’” (p. 2). Moreover, creating an audience beyond the teacher (Strassman & O’Connell, 2007) afforded

collaborative moviemaking project would be ideal at the beginning of the school year, because it has the potential to help establish a classroom com-munity and allow students to share their strengths while building new ones.

One strength of the curriculum design was that the project’s literacy activities were sequenced pur-posefully so that each literacy activity supported the next. Alonso articulated the effectiveness this way: “Without doing all that [reading, writing, talking], we could never have gotten down to filming and fin-ishing this whole thing. . . . Every step of the whole process is vital.”

Although some students initially might have seen reading the chapter books as merely delaying filming, Alonso came to recognize that the read-ing informed the writing, and the writing informed the moviemaking: “I think it is good to do it from a book. Some people are short-minded on creating stuff on their own. [We] seriously couldn’t have done this movie without the book.”

The project also offered students an expanded view of the writing process, mostly because their attention was sustained while they worked toward making a text evolve. As they completed the many types of writing that supported the evolution of that text—reader responses, original stories, pitches, group stories, storyboards, scripts—many stu-dents made connections and discoveries about writing. Alonso came to understand the relation-ship between essential description and making ideas clearer and more understandable to the audi-ence: “In narratives, you have to make the whole thing more descriptive. So the people watching the movie, they’d know who is doing what, so they’re not confused.”

From conferring, Alonso realized that as a writer, he cannot assume his reader/audience will automatically be able to make meaning; to him, sufficient description became critical: “In order to make a story come to life, you need a lot of descrip-tion. Without it, the whole story might as well not exist.” Other students who experienced struggles during planning and drafting learned that turning to someone else to talk through ideas can get them past a particular hurdle.

Because moviemaking is the

creation of a multimodal text,

students had the opportunity to

view the world from multiple

perspectives.

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Carol Bedard is an associate professor at the University of Houston-Downtown in Houston, Texas, where she teaches language and literacy courses in the Department of Urban Education. She can be

reached at [email protected]. Charles Fuhrken is a literacy researcher and assessment specialist in Austin, Texas. He is the author of What Every Elementary Teacher Needs to Know about Reading Tests

(Stenhouse, 2009). He can be reached at [email protected].

Daniels, H. (2002). Literature circles: Voice and choice in book clubs and reading groups. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Essley, R., Rief, L., & Rocci, A. L. (2008). Visual tools for differentiating reading and writing instruction: Strategies to help students make abstract ideas concrete and accessible. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Fox, C. (2008). History, war, and politics: Taking “comix” seriously. In V. Ellis, C. Fox, & B. Street (Eds.), Rethinking English in schools: Towards a new and constructive stage (pp. 88–101). London, England: Continuum.

Hancock, M. R. (2007). Language arts: Extending the possibilities. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Hull, G. A., & Nelson, M. E. (2005). Locating the semiotic power of multimodality. Written Communication, 22, 224–261.

Kajder, S. (2010). Adolescents and digital literacies: Learning alongside our students. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge.

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The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009, August). Mission statement. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. Retrieved from http://www.albertomattiacci.it/docs/did/Digital_Natives_Digital_Immigrants.pdf.

Rosenblatt, L. M. (1995). Literature as exploration. New York, NY: The Modern Language Association of America. Originally published 1938.

Stephens, L., & Ballast, K. H. (2011). Using technology to improve adolescent writing: Digital makeovers for writing lessons. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Strassman, B. K., & O’Connell, T. (2007). Authoring with video. The Reading Teacher, 61, 330–333.

Vasquez, V. (2010). Critical literacy isn’t just for books anymore. The Reading Teacher, 63, 614–616.

Watts, R. (2007). Harnessing the power of film in the primary classroom. Early child development & care (pp. 102–109). New York, NY: Routledge.

an authentic moviemaking environment and helped students see themselves as writers who have some-thing important to say and share. They had devel-oped a passion for doing work that mattered out-side of school walls (Kajder, 2010; Vasquez, 2010). Alonso informed us that he is now ready and pre-pared to shape and develop another idea: “I already have a story that I’d like to make as a movie, and now I can use these [processes] in order to make the movie.”

Indeed, the multimodal moviemaking project engaged and inspired students who created products that Alonso and his peers could admire as accom-plishments: “I thought this [project] was one of the neatest things because real Hollywood actors take years to make a movie, and we are just kids, and it was just weeks.” What better testament to a project that motivated students to engage in multiple litera-cies and emerge more skilled, more confident, and better prepared to take on the next challenge?

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Czarnecki, K. (2009). How digital storytelling builds 21st century skills. Library Technology Reports. Retrieved from www.alatechsource.org.

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Documents

Writing for the Big Screen: Literacy Experiences in a Moviemaking Project