Common Core Speaking and Listening Standard 5

The Digital Age has arrived! It's apparent in College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Speaking and Listening 5 (CCRA.SL.5): "Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations."

SL.3.5 invites third graders to "create engaging audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace; add visual displays when appropriate to emphasize or enhance certain facts or details." Let's let one student's product speak for this standard. Racheal Garza showcases her oral reading skills in "Oral Reading Winning Poem."

SL.4.5  directs fourth graders to "add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes." By fifth grade (SL.5.5), students must "include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes." One fine example of audio and video integration is "Indian Vision..." by Katy Morton.

The number of applications available for this task is staggering. "Tools and Apps for Student Projects and Presentations," compiled by S. Wilson of Instructional Development Services at CSUSM, outlines digital presentations  and websites, infographics, word clouds, screencasting, recording virtual meetings, annotated maps, and images - - - all free! This great resource is clickable, taking you directly to products and examples. I'll keep my commentary brief today. That way you can spend your time exploring this amazing resource.

In closing, I'd like to emphasize the synergy released by projects like this. Last year my students worked in groups to promote The Black Stallion using Microsoft PowerPoint. Integrating simple visuals with short persuasive voice-over allowed us to address reading, writing, and speaking/listening standards while using higher order thinking skills (not to mention technology expertise!) More than anything, it gave my students a sense of accomplishment and a "can-do" attitude. Yes, it was tough to coordinate audio recording with 24 nine-year-old children in the room. No, the products were not of professional caliber. But the benefit to my students was greater than the effort expended. Synergy: gotta love it!