www.literacyshed.com/takingflight.html
This is such a fantastic resource and you can access it from home if you would like to. As usual, we watch the film, stopping every few seconds to notice what we see, what is happening, how we feel and what we predict will happen next. We jot down our ideas and words and phrases which we later use to scaffold our writing.
One of my favourite things during these activities is how we work collaboratively. We learn so much from each other as we hear and discuss everyone's different ideas and perspectives. Today our discussion went for 30 minutes for a five minute film... and that's before we started writing! I absolutely love this level of excitement and engagement!
One of the things we talked a lot about today was inferred meaning. If you watch the video, there are two scenes when the boy and his grandpa walk past a little girl wearing headphones and playing on a phone/iPod type device. We asked what the author's intention was to include her in these scenes. What is the purpose of this scene, the way the girl is portrayed, the way the music and atmosphere change? An awareness of audience and purpose is a key outcome in the English syllabus, as are literal and inferred meaning. We certainly learnt a lot about these today.
Finally, I can always tell we have had a good writing lesson when students don't want to leave the classroom. As the lunch bell went, I had about 8 students asking to stay and finish their writing. Great work everyone!