Evaluation Criteria

  1. Genre: Whatever you choose must actually fit in that genre. A video that’s just a single picture for two minutes isn’t a video because it doesn’t move; it doesn’t engage us the way a video/film should. When you write your proposal, you’ll have a chance to set up what the rules and conventions are for that genre.
  2. Appropriateness for audience: If you’re doing something for 4th grade students, it shouldn’t be full of graduate school words. Appropriate means word choice, approach to topic/issue, use of visuals if you use them – does the way you “wrote” your genre piece fit what would work best for this audience?
  3. Effectiveness of message: We’ll share these in class so you’ll get a chance to see if you got your point across. Did it fulfill your purpose?
  4. Length/Timeliness: The genre piece can be whatever length it needs to be based on the conventions of the genre.
  5. Reflection: Did you thoughtfully reflect on your process, even if things didn’t turn out quite how you wanted?
  6. Clarity: sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation

Helpful resources for composing in various genres: 

The NYT has an entire list of “Mentor Texts” that help you write articles like a sports article and a personal health column. It’s quite useful.  It can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-mentor-texts

The New York Times on creating a Podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/learning/making-a-podcast-that-matters-a-guide-with-examples-from-23-students.html

More resources for creating texts:

Free music: https://www.purple-planet.com/

Free sound effects: http://soundbible.com/free-sound-effects-1.html

Copyright safe images (photos, clip art, etc): https://search.creativecommons.org/

Stock videos (and photos): https://www.pexels.com

Illustrations you can manipulate: https://undraw.co/illustrations

https://www.canva.com/ is a mostly free (especially if you upload your own images) design program that does everything from posters and banners to storyboards and comic strips. A real go-to tool for a lot of people.

Posters, infographics, etc.:

Online comic maker: https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Audio creator/editor:  https://www.audacityteam.org/ [easy to use with a full range of tools, lots of videos about how to use it]

Screencasting/video recording:

  •  https://screencast-o-matic.com/ Screencast-o-matic is free if you want to do screen capture videos from your laptop (note: 15 minute max time).
  • YouTube Studio will give you lots of tutorials about how to create videos

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