Big Chicken Magazine

Our class LOVED the book Big Chickens! After reading and discussing the author's message of the book, I asked the students to think about a time in their lives that they were afraid and to also reflect on how that all changed. Every boy and girl could relate, and students were sent off to write about this time of overcoming a fear: "I used to be a big chicken, until..." Key components of the response that I expected were: identifying the fear, why was it a fear/what went through their mind, how did they overcome it, and how are they different now that it has been conquered. As part two of the assignment, students then drew a 'before' and 'after' picture to visually show the growth they had made in conquering the fear.



ABOUT THIS WEB 2.0 TOOL:
While searching for a 'fresh' way to present student work (I feel Voicethreaded out! lol), I found this great site called Issuu. Issue takes your Word, PDF, and Powerpoint documents and turns them into online publications. There is a lot of patience and creativityrequired as you must upload the material EXACTLY as you want it. You must also be prepared to need to reload the document completely if changes or additions are needed; and to trouble shoot if some elements upload 'funky!' Overall, though, this a great, easy way to make a class book or magazine out of student writing, journaling, photos, reflections... or even for portfolio constructing!