The Literary Pyramid
Mohawk Trail Regional School District
Description of Activities
The teacher first introduced the Literary Pyramid and defined its terms. To help students understand the pyramid, the teacher played an audio recording of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling. After listening to the story, the class applied their knowledge of the Literary Pyramid to complete a pyramid based on Kipling's story. The teacher also explained other literary terms such as setting and conflict and discussed with the class five types of conflict that are seen in literature (character versus character, character versus self, character versus nature, character versus society, and character versus fate).
Next the teacher showed the class an example of a story that had been filmed. She then explained the process of story writing based on the Literary Pyramid and showed students how to create a storyboard. Next she instructed students on computer use, camera use, and video editing.
The teacher formed groups of students to work together. The students wrote stories, created storyboards, created scenery, and brought in props for their silent movies. Then they used bendable characters and video cameras to animate their stories [MOV]. As a culminating activity, the students presented their finished products [MOV] to their classmates. Students assessed their projects and those of their peers using teacher-developed rubrics.
Universal Design/Inclusion
This project was done in heterogeneously grouped seventh grade English Language Arts classes. One of the classes included an autistic child. Because of the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of this project and because students worked in cooperative groups creating videos with bendable figures, it appealed to a variety of learning styles. These included bodily kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, and interpersonal. Students were encouraged to use their creativity and imagination. In the pre-instruction phase, Rudyard Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi was read aloud to the students. This made the story accessible to all students regardless of their reading level.
 View movie - Pete's Pizza Palace [MOV]- View accessible movie - Pete's Pizza Palace [SML]
 View text description - Pete's Pizza Palace-
- View movie - The Reckless Rollerblader [MOV]
- View accessible movie - The Reckless Rollerblader [SML]
- View text description - The Reckless Rollerblader
Help for viewing movies
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last updated: October 15, 2004
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