As a part of the course, Language Across the Curriculum, at the faculty of Education, I was introduced to a concept called Triple Entry Journal. A triple entry journal allows students to first look at an image or still frame, then watch part of a clip, and then watch the full clip, while reflecting and writing about what they see and predict will happen between each. This concept can apply to many content areas and can be utilized at many grade levels.
On my placement I recreated this concept for The Great Gatsby unit. I chose this as a pre-reading activity for my students to get them thinking about what the novel will entail. We first looked at the movie poster for the movie adaptation for The Great Gatsby. The students reflected on media aspects such as color and font, and then responded to what images they saw and the effect it had on them as a viewer. We then watched a minute of the movie trailer. Again, I had students respond to what they saw and heard and made predictions about what might happen in the remainder of the clip. Then, we watched the full clip and students responded to their own predictions and what they enjoyed about the clip.
This activity gets students activity engaged in the media aspect of English and incorporates literacy into the classroom. Students are writing and responding while critically thinking about media. This activity worked well with my students and gained praise from my associate.
The students stated they liked the activity, as many of them had seen the movie but paid little attention to the finer details of the movie trailer. They liked the idea of being actively engaged rather than watching and responding after the video was over. They also stated they enjoyed the segregation of video and image clip, and liked being able to look at how their own thoughts had changed.