I had originally planned to begin a new unit in my French 3 classes this past week and a half leading up to Spring Break, but everyone was showing signs of exhaustion after the completion of our last chapter, projects, and oral quizzes (on a light topic such as environmental issues and endangered animals in Francophone countries). They did a great job, so I wanted to reward them with something different than usual as we transitioned into Spring Break. I wanted a creative challenge that we could successfully complete in a week, and the pressure was on–I honestly had no idea how it would turn out, but I was excited to tap into my journalism background and do a journalism mini-project-based unit.
Over the past week, I taught my students all they might want to know about the news and media in French. I helped them expand their vocabulary in French after reading recent headlines, listening to topical news podcasts, watching daily news broadcasts, and parsing through satirical news sites in French to see if students could figure out what headlines were real and what were parodies (ask me if you want to see the presentation–the headlines are hilarious). We even debated current events and students defended their opinions about the news and journalistic integrity.
During our final long block period (today’s class), I charged the students with creating a class-wide 15-minute news broadcast. Running through some modified design thinking exercises, students in my 5th period (sole Carondelet-only) class pitched and then voted on their ideas for the show, concept, title, and logo and came up with the following:
In groups of 2-3, the girls were responsible for the following 2-minute segments:
- Introduction and Carondelet-local news (including Mr. Cushing’s departure from the school as he prepares to go on tour with the Spice Girls)
- San Francisco Bay Area news about a local scammer and Anne Hathaway impersonator
- International news chronicling the Carondelet trip to France next week in the wake of today’s Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris
- Sports covering the Carondelet swimming, rugby, and lacrosse teams
- Arts and lifestyle covering the construction of the art class’s school bus in the inner court that was tragically stolen overnight and replaced with a gigantic croissant
- And the broadcast closes out on a very high note covering the erratic weather we’ve been experiencing recently.
They quickly edited their videos using either iMovie or the Apple Clips app which Karina and I presented about on Friday (and I’m looking forward to creating a screencast or future blog entry showcasing all the cool features Clips has to offer if you weren’t able to attend our Grab-and-Go session last week).
Here is the folder of all their videos if you’re at all curious to see what they were able to produce with the quick 80-minute turnaround during today’s class. I had a lot of fun helping them think through their scripts and watching the final production (which we won’t get to watch as a class until after break), and I am so proud of them for their creativity and sensitivity and attention to world news as it relates to this class.
This was one of my most favorite long block periods of the entire year, and I am looking forward to getting even more creative next month when I roll out a food truck race competition in my French 3 classes.
That’s it for this blog, see you on the other side of Spring Break, everyone!