Lesson 8

Autobiographical Voice Thread

Subject Area: Media, English Language Arts

Grade level: 6-7

Time: Three lessons over the course of a week

Students: All students

Materials:

1. Computer with Internet Access
2. Projector

Objectives:

1. Students will create their own voice thread about their life.
2. Students will see the way their peers see themselves and learn about culture and self identity.

 Procedures:

1. Begin the lesson by talking about what a short autobiography is.
2. Go over critical points of a short autobiography with the students.
3. Have the students write out one important life event that has happened for each year of their life. (If they are 10 years old, they should have 10 events. If they are 7yrs, 7 events…)
4. Next, have the students find images of these events either at home or on the internet. They should bring in the images as an electronic document to be ready for voicethread.
5. Next class go to the computer lab and begin by teaching how to use voicethread.
6. First, go to voicethread.com and set up an account. Then, have all the students upload their chosen pictures. They must write at least 6 captions for their events.
7. Make sure to tell the students that their voicethread should be in chronological order.

 For an example of my own voice thread 
follow this link → http://voicethread.com/share/859240/

   8.   Have the students send each of their short autobiographies to you.

   9.  The next class have all the autobiographies shown in class on the projector.

Evaluation:

Evaluate each voice thread individually. There should be one event for each year of their life. The images chosen should correspond with the blurb that they write or narrate. Each entry should include proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Do not evaluate their life events. A ‘small’ event to one person may be a ‘big’ event to another. Everyone is different and experience different things.