Sonic Pics- Persuasive Commercials

Helping each other choose the MOST important points.

The students started working yesterday on their Persuasive Sonic Pic presentations;  however it was not the lesson that I planned over the weekend.  I have to admit I totally through my lesson plan out the window and allowed the class to redirect the lesson.  As I was introducing the idea yesterday, one of the boys said, "Mrs. Caplin if we think about the Super Bowl commercials as persuasive and how they try to make us purchase the product, why can't we create our own commercials with the HOT topics?"  I took my plans and through them in the trash just like any smart teacher would have done.  

From that point on we discussed and created a new rubric for what they believed would make a strong commercial.  Here is our class determined criteria:

*At least five slides with visuals that must include graphics/ charts/ and one created picture

*Each verbal text must connect to the visual and be at least 10-20 seconds long. At that point one of the students showed the class how the iPods have built in stop watches to practice timing their words as they read them aloud.
*Overall flow of the presentation including visual and words along with persuasive qualities

*We took a large index card divided into five equal groups: label the first slide (lead/hook) the next three support and finally the fifth slide (strong closing). This is where they started to record the MOST important facts from their writing.

This lesson turned out much better than I had planned, and they were so excited because it was their idea to create persuasive commercials.  Helpful hint of the day: Sometimes you have to throw your plans in the trash and allow the students the power to create new ones!