Ms. Barkley's fifth grade class lets their creativity go wild with green screen writing project
Fifth grade teacher, Ms. Alena Barkley, took her students' dressing up for Halloween as an opportunity to have her class do an out of the box writing assignment in November. During her classroom Halloween party, Ms. Barkley brought in a green screen and had her students take pictures in front of it. For those unfamiliar with a green screen, it is a backdrop that allows a person to layer two images together based on color hues. A program or app can be used to replace the green with a new background.
The students were to imagine what they wanted their background to be in each shot and pose in a way that would fit in this imaginary background. "When I asked each student, 'What do you want your background to be?' a common response was, 'Well, what background can I choose?' I replied, 'Whatever you want,'" said Ms. Barkley. "That is the magic of a green screen." Once the students had decided on an idea for the background, they searched for and selected a background image to use for their picture. Students then combined the picture they had of themselves with the background they had chosen using a green screen app called Green Screen by Do Ink with Ms. Barkley's supervision and guidance.
Ms. Barkley told the students there would be a classroom writing component to go along with the pictures taken. Once the photographs were complete, the students started a writing assignment that described the photograph and background image they had created. They brainstormed ideas, wrote their rough drafts, made revisions and edits, and produced a final copy of their writing to accompany their green screen image.
"I was very impressed with their creativity in the creation of the images and their writing," said Ms. Barkley.