Getting Started with Pages: A Journal

Our English III teachers wanted to give Pages a try, so we worked together to create a journal template for students to use when reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller. We played around with some of the features and decided to experiment with templates, image and audio placeholders, and eventually adding video. First, students would need to respond to introductory questions related to the theme of the play. We also required an image to represent their answers as well; web-based images, drawings, or even personal photographs were okay since the responses were personal in nature.

Introductory questions/discussion prompts

Next, after reading parts of the play, students were asked to return to their journals to focus on characterization. They would need to insert a picture of the character (from the Internet or hand drawn), write a few important facts about the character, and copy one quote from the text that best represents the character (text evidence). Then, they were to create an audio recording of their answer on the same page. Using an audio recording gave students voice and helped limit cheating!

Character Example

After reading the play entirely, students were required to make a connection to the text by posting a connection from a character in the play to a character or theme in another book, song, poem, show, movie, life, or society and explain why. We used Padlet for this, but Freeform would have been an excellent choice for this part of the assignment. We will make that change next year.

Text Connection Padlet

After reflecting, we decided to take the journal one step further for next year. We added character projects (from the Apple Education Forum!) to the final page. Students will be able to choose to complete either the Memoji Character Development Keynote for one character or the Animated Character Map Keynote over all the characters. Both projects require the use of Live Video, so students will be required to insert their video on the final page of the journal.

Additional Project

Overall, creating a journal is a great way to get started with Keynote. It is easy and much more fun than writing in a paper journal! Your students will enjoy bringing in images, audio, and video. Next year, we will do a little app smashing by adding the Keynote live videos to the journal as well. Good luck! #DPtech

Attachments

Crucible Character Development.template

Download  (1.5 MB)