Using laserdiscs to support language arts

Instructor, May-June, 1998 by Sharon Porter

As a technology mentor, I've met many teachers with laserdiscs who share a common problem - they don't know how to use them. Enter Charlotte's Web, America's timeless tale of friendship, and as familiar as an old sweater. With Masterpiece: Charlotte's Web laserdisc (Silver Burdett Ginn), you can put a new spin on this old favorite - and discover how using laserdiscs can enrich your students' learning experiences.

SETTING THE STAGE

As with any new unit, a good place to begin is with students' interests. Charlotte's Web is an opportunity to look further into students' fascination with spiders. Use the laserdisc segment on spiders to explore misconceptions about spiders. Gather information that students know on a K-W-L chart (What I Know, What I Want to Know, What I Learned).

WRITING AND READING CONNECTIONS

Character Development: Generate a discussion of the various meanings of the word web. Use the master of webs on the laserdisc to explore characters in the story. First, watch the "A Way with Words" segment that shows movie footage of the goose giving the definitive way to spell terrific. Have students generate words that are attributes of characters in Charlotte's Web and weave them in their webs.

Free Writing: Use descriptive words from the character web activity as inspiration for writing Haiku and acrostic poems (using the first letters of a character's name). The laserdisc includes models for these, as well.

Authors and Illustrators: Use the laserdisc to look at the give-andtake between author E. B. White's concept of Charlotte and illustrator Garth William's (see "Artist to Artist"). This is a segue into activities involving scientific observation. Have children use writer's notebooks to record observations and sketch details of the world around them to use in their own writing.

Stories that Teach: Research myths that explain the natural world, starting with the story of Arachne (see "Student Newspaper"). Myths, retellings of "Anansi the Spider," and Native American pourquoi stories provide rich resources. Have students investigate and act out short folktales.

SCIENCE CONNECTIONS

Getting the Facts: Use the segment "Spiders: Fact and Fiction" to spark science investigations. What is the anatomy of a spider? What do spiders eat? How do spiders spin their webs? How do they catch their prey? How do spiders move? Let students team up to research questions and create presentations.

Observations Up Close: Set up a center to observe spiders up close. Have students record observations in their logbooks. They can look for spider sightings outside the classroom, too, and make note of these.

Games that Teach: Help students create games to check for factual understanding. They can use the Internet, CD-ROMs, reference books, and The Encyclopedia of Animals: Insects and Spiders to add to the information they have. Have students write stumper questions with bar-coded answers to share.

ALL ABOUT LASERDISCS

A laserdisc is the size of a record, but it plays full-motion video like a VCR. A laserdisc can take you to more than 100,000 frames with the push of a button on a remote - no rewinding, fast-forwarding, or waiting.

Many laserdiscs come with teaching guides and other supports materials. Built-in bar codes on the teaching materials make it easy to go exactly where you want. You scan in the bar codes, and the corresponding frames will pop right up on your screen.

Bar coding makes it easy to customize laserdiscs, too. Using software such as Bar'NCoder (Pioneer), you assign bar codes to the frames you want to pull up. You can print the bar codes on any kind of paper. Tip: To make bar codes read better and last longer, laminate them.

Resources

LASERDISCS AND CD-ROMS

* Masterpiece: Charlotte's Web, Silver Burdett Ginn, (800) 848-9500

* Encyclopedia of Animals: Insects and Spiders, Pioneer, (800) 527-3766

* Eyewitness: Encyclopedia of Nature, CD-ROM, DK Multimedia, (800) 356-6575

Teaching plans, bar-coded to go with various laserdiscs, are available from Laser Learning Technologies. For information, call (800) 722-3505 or check the Web site at http://www.llt.com.

BOOKS

* Amazing Spiders by Alexandra Parsons (Demco Media, 1990). Large photos will mesmorize students as they learn about bird-eating spiders, spitting spiders, and more.

* Dream Weaver by Jonathan London (Harcourt Brace, 1998). This close-up look at a tiny yellow spider from a child's point of view will bring your students back again and again. The fact page will inspire students to write their own fun, informative stories.

* Someone Saw a Spider by Shirley Climo (HarperCollins, 1985). Pictures, poems, folklore, and more.

WEB SITES

http://www.ufsia.ac.be/Arachnology/Arachnology.html

http://www.eou.edu/peers/spid.html

http://www.powerup.com.au/~glen/spider.htm

Sharon Porter is a school library media specialist at La Grande Schools, in La Grande, Oregon. This year she is also a Pioneer Mentor. The Pioneer Mentor Program trains teachers to help educators use technology as a teaching tool. For more information about the program, write to Pioneer Mentor Program, Pioneer New Media Technologies, P.O. Box 93131, Long Beach, CA 90809, or call (800) laseron.