Bill Young

Students remake their all time favorite movie into a much briefer and very low budget version of the original. The term is from a 2008 Jack Black movie called "Be Kind Rewind". In the movie, Jack Black works at a VHS video rental store, and acidentally erases all the video tapes. Rather than purchase new tapes, he and his coworker, Mos Def, decide to reshoot the movies using low budget effects that they can scrounge from the local dumpsters. I usually show clips from this movie to my stude

Students start this project by reading one of 3 novels. I usually have my new kids read Ender's game and my older kids read Ender's shadow. If any of them have read these two novels already I have them read Shadow of the Hedgemon. These novels follow the lives of gifted students and is set in the future. They are sent to a special school in outer space called "battle school", where they learn to become military leaders in the hope that they will give humanity the advantage in a battle agains

Each year, I get a fresh batch of 6th grade gifted students who come from at least 3 different elementary schools. I designed this project as an ice breaker, but the skills in this project could be used throught the year. Students use a free program called Audacity (requires access to a computer that has a microphone) to interview each other and record the interview as an MP3 file. Project file includes a grading rubric for the MP3 file, a grading rubric for the video file and quick referen

Students create a device or invention that will help the average middle school student. After they've created their device or invention, they have to shoot an infomercial that will help sell their product, including testimonials from the average middle school student(s). Project file includes the invention grading rubric, video grading rubric and a quick reference to using Movie Maker for the PC.