As part of 9th-grade students' investigation in to "integrationism" and "separatism" within African American history, students were asked to create a 30-second commerical about topics from 1865-present. Click on the link below for examples of students' work:

30-Sec Commercial: MLK's "I have a Dream..."

30-Sec Commercial: Emmett Till

30-Sec Commercial: Obama

For more detailed descriptions of the research and writing process, see "Research/Essay Process" and "30-Second Commerical" notes below.

Research/Essay Process

1. Class brainstorm on African American history topics, 1865-present
2. Individual brainstorm on students' "top 10" list with 3 "What I know..." and 3 "What I want to know..." questions
3. Extended research with identification of three APA-style citations for the top 3 of top 10 topics
4. Identification of supporting images
5. Coaching for a thesis statement and corresponding outline
6. Peer and teacher editing of rough and final essay drafts

30-Second Commercial_Student Guide:

Once students devloped a liteal understanding of an aspect of African American history, they then began to work on the 30-second commerical. Below is an outline of the student guide:

For this assignment, you will take on the role of a video editor/production artist within a publicity firm. Your assignment is to create a 30-second commercial that advances the thesis statement of a much larger and more extensive position paper of the individual or organization who has hired your company. The commerical project outline is based on the thesis statement, research and arguments within the history essay. Although you will be using 21st century tools, you will be appealing to the audience of the time in which your topic ocurred.

In order to complete the project, you will have to present an outline of your commercial to classmates (and teacher) for review. You will upload an MS-word based outline of their 30 second commercial on Moodle and in Print.

The outline should include the following:

1. Name and your topic
2. Thesis statement
3. 6-8 supporting slides (for about 3-5 seconds each); the slides may take on the following format, or you can modify them as needed:
   1. Introduction phrase
   2. image
   3. supporting phrase
   4. image
   5. supporting phrase
   6. image
   7. concluding phrase (and contact info).
4. Production notes:
   1. sources for images, voice-over, sound files (if any)
   2. benefits of particular arrangement of texts/words

This outline will be used to guide the PowerPoint, Keynote, or other media* format commercial.

* If you elect to use another media format, please be sure that your colleagues (students, teacher) have the software to open and read it.