Learning card

Making a video review of a book (with spoilers)

Description

This activity will help students to exercise critical reading and their ability to summarize, as well as the audiovisual creation of a videotape, such as those produced by booktubers for Youtube. This review will be made with spoilers of the book that is discussed (there's another spoiler-free version of this same activity titled Making a video review of a book (without spoilers).

Tag
  • Book
  • Social Media
  • Video
Skills

PRODUCTION

  • Create and modify audiovisual productions
  • Use filming and editing tools

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

  • Manage content dissemination and sharing

SOCIAL MANAGEMENT

  • Participate in social media
  • Collaborate
  • Coordinate and lead

INDIVIDUAL MANAGEMENT

  • Self-manage

PERFORMATIVE

  • Act

MEDIA AND TECHOLOGY

  • Evaluate and reflect

NARRATIVE AND AESTHETICS

  • Interpret
  • Recognise and describe
  • Evaluate and reflect
  • Take action and apply

IDEOLOGY AND ETHICAL

  • Evaluate and reflect

RISK PREVENTION

  • Recognise and describe
  • Take action and apply
Learning areas
  • Foreign Languages
  • Language
Card language
  • Spanish
  • English

Structure

Sessions
3 + homework (Variable)
Duration
50' (Variable)
Number of participants
10-30
Age
  • 10-13
  • 14-16
  • 17-18
Materials
  • Reading material
  • Smartphone or videocamera
  • Computer with editing software
  • Internet

Process

Key questions
  • What are the core formal and content values of this book?
  • How can I summarize this book for my audience?
  • How can I convert the literary writing into audio-visual language? What are the main elements of a good review?
  • What are the analytical tools needed to make a review?
  • • What are the essential criteria that we should follow (characters, style, narrative worlds, etc.)?
  • How do we use them to plan and produce a video-review?
  • What are the characteristics of good and effective oral communication?
  • How can we use audio-visual language to express ideas?
Development

NOTE: This activity can be carried out individually, in pairs, or in small groups.

All students read the same book chosen by/with the teacher. This can be a mandatory book or one chosen by the students, according to learning objectives, context, age, interests, etc. (Duration: variable. At home, with previous sessions).

In the class the teacher explains the main analytical tools and criteria for narrative analysis and shows different examples of good and bad reviews.

Organize small teams to produce the video-review with spoilers about the book that is being reviewed. Depending on the context, participants can be organized individually or in pairs or small groups.

(50')

Each group has to produce a video-review of the selected book following the guidelines discussed previously.

Videoreviews are usually 5 minutes long, use accessible and understandable language and are aimed at a non-expert audience.

Encourage your students to look for videoreview examples on Youtube.

(Homework).

Before uploading their homework to Youtube, guide your students about the privacy settings of Youtube content, so they share their works in private or non-listed modality. Discuss the strategies they should follow to avoid risks online.

Instruct your students to use attractive and effective titles, description, content tags, and other Youtube features.

(50')

Each group has to upload their videoreview to Youtube following the instructions discussed before.

Encourage your students to view and comment on each other’s videos. (Homework)

The activity finishes with a discussion about the rhetorical and aesthetical qualities of their reviews, about what they have learned while making it, about the differences between written and audiovisual language and about circulation of information (50').

Evaluation

Students are encouraged to give feedback to other teams on the comments section of their video.

In the final discussion, you should also give positive feedback about the projects that fulfilled the learning goals and clear advice in areas of improvement.

References for professors
Author

Maria-José Establés. Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Barcelona (Spain), mariajose.estables@upf.edu   

José Miguel Tomasena. Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Barcelona (Spain), contacto@jmtomasena.com

  • Book
  • Social Media
  • Video