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Featuring Great Teaching:
Stepping Out with Stepping Up!
by Sue Jackson

Grade 7 Stars at Film Festival.

As students gathered anxiously in their classroom waiting for their turn down the red carpet, parents, teachers, administrators, and honoured guests gathered in the school library for an exclusive viewing at the Grade 7 Film Festival. This unique and exciting event all began with the creative thinking of one grade 7 teacher, Shae Hallman of Harris Heights School in Ingersoll, Ontario. Shae "stepped out" with her own culminating task for this Stepping Up Unit. After her students completed the task suggested in the teaching plans, she wanted something more to challenge her students' thinking and provide an opportunity for them to demonstrate their learning.

Advertising poster.

One morning early in November, students arrived at school to find an invitation from The Big Fancy Movie Company sitting on their desks. The Movie Company was asking students to develop an advertising poster and a movie trailer that would be featured at a gala event (formal dress required) in early December. Students were intrigued by the invitation and jumped right into the "real-life" learning involved in this task. They had completed the reading and discussions of one of the four books from the This Is Who I Am Book Club (Chu Ju's House, Rules, Marked, or Brendan Buckley's Universe). Individually, students outlined the most exciting moments of the text, designed a "shoot," and picked actors from the movie industry who they thought would be appropriate for the roles in the movie. Next, groups worked collaboratively to devise a script and the scenes they wanted to shoot. Then the hard work of directing and acting began. Finally, posters were created to advertise the upcoming movie and students were ready to share their work.

Advertising poster.

Students who were "dressed to the nines" proudly walked the red carpet and entered the festival venue amidst applause and cheering. As the lights dimmed and the trailers rolled, nervous tension filled the air, until applause rang out. In interviews following the showing, students remarked about the things they had learned during this unit—from reading and understanding a text at a deeper level, to making appropriate choices, to designing a script, to using a video camera.

The Film Festival was a huge success!