Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Standards

2. All students will use technology, information and other tools
2.2 Select appropriate tools and technology for specific activities.
2.7 Use technology and other tools to solve problems, collect data, and make decisions.
2.8 Use technology and other tools, including word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs, and print or graphic utilities, to produce products.

3. All students will use critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
3.1 Recognize and define a problem, or clarify decisions to be made.
3.8 Organize, synthesize, and evaluate information for appropriateness and completeness.
3.10 Monitor and validate their own thinking.
3.15 Apply problem-solving skills to original and creative/design projects.

4. All Students Will Demonstrate Self-Management Skills.
4.9 Use time efficiently and effectively.

Visual And Performing Arts Standards

1.1 All students will acquire knowledge and skills that increase aesthetic awareness in dance, music, theater, and visual arts.

1.3 All students will utilize arts elements and arts media to produce artistic products and performances.

1.6 All students will develop design skills for planning the form and function of space, structures, objects, sound, and events.

Language Arts Literacy Standards

3.4 All Students Will Read Various Materials And Texts With Comprehension And Critical Analysis.

3.5 All Students Will View, Understand, And Use Nontextual Visual Information

Lesson Plan

Objectives: All students will learn about the humorous poems of artist Shel Silverstein. Students will be expected to discuss the importance of humor in human communication.
Students will write and illustrate humorous poems of a personal nature.
Students will learn to use technology to design animations based on their works.

Materials: Syber- Silverstein website, various books by Shel Silverstein, blank paper, thin black marker, Microsoft Word, Internet access, Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Image Composer/Gif Animator, scanner (optional)

Time: @5-6 forty-minute periods

Procedure: Introduce students to the work of artist and poet Shel Silverstein. Gather students around and read "The Giving Tree". Discuss the meaning and lessons of the story. It is helpful if you have copies of some of Silverstein's other short poems from his books, "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light In The Attic". Our sixth graders love to ead aloud some of these whimsical and delightful short poems.

Have students go online to the Silverstein website. Give students time to read through the biography. Direct students to the Links page and go through some other works written by Silverstein. Have students share favorite poems. Ask students where they think Shel got his inspiration.

Assign students the task of writing a simple and humorous poem about something personal in their lives. We required a minimum of 8 lines. (This can be done as a homework assignment.) Review the rhyming mechanism. Have students exchange poems and have them proofed by a peer...or two.
 
Students type their poem into Microsoft Word and save.

Instruct students in the art of creating line cartoons. Have student read through their poem and select a simple scene or line from the poem to illustrate. Remember to remind students that they will have to animate, or show movement as part of the final illustrated animation. Students sketch out their ideas onto blank 4 x 6" index cards. Outline drawing in thin black marker and scan. (Or students can draw directly into the computer using Microsoft Paint). Save as master image.

Allow students to look at the Silverstein website again and review the animation directions and samples.

Students can use one of the sample images provided in the website or their master image. Students open up their image in Paint. They immediately create a master copy and are to work from the copy only! Do not let students alter the master image! Open the copy in Paint. Students are walked through the tools associated with this simple program. Once students feel comfortable with the tools, introduce the animation step.

Students can sketch out a simple storyboard of their intended animation. Now they use the allotted time to alter their image into at least a four-step animation. As each image is altered it is to be saved as frame 1, frame 2, frame 3…etc. Remind students that images are to be saved as CompuServe Gif format.

Open up Gif Animator and instruct students how to drop their images into the program. Detailed lesson plans are on this website should students have any specific questions, or forget a step.

Students are reminded to work with the timing so the animation runs smoothly. Also remind students to check "loop and loop forever". This will keep the image animated as long as it is open in Explorer or on the web.

When students are satisfied with their final products, have students hit the Select All icon and save animated gif to their floppy or their network folder. Instruct students to copy their poem onto their floppy or onto their network folder.

Completed poems and animated gifs will be compiled into a special website.