Recently, I wrote about how Learn From Play resources can be used to teach the cross-curriculum priority area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures and celebrating NAIDOC week through literacy , as well as teaching science, compassion, history and numeracy. Multimodal literacy and visual literacy is another important area of teaching that I am going to discuss here, because as a Teacher Librarian, it is an area I have been focusing on recently with my Stage 2 and 3 students. By utilising Canva, we have been bringing books to life, and my students have been growing their skills in multimodal literacy with book trailers.
Yes - As well as being the Founder and Content Creator for Learn From Play, I am a teacher librarian. Learn From Play is my passion project, but I still work in a primary school as I love face to face teaching. Designing my programs around the outcomes in the Literacy syllabus, I always seek to make my lessons as innovative, engaging and enjoyable for my students as possible. I am a big fan of Canva and my most recent lessons involved students using Canva software to create book trailers and book posters. My students really loved this project and it was a fantastic activity to help them learn to communicate through images and video rather than just written text.
Every year, I purchase the best of the notable CBCA books for my library and I make use of these books, combined with Learn From Play activities, extensively with my Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students (which you will hear in a future blog). I do this to get as much value as possible from these books and to expose as many of my students as I can to the fabulous stories, images and information. This is how I came to develop multimodal literacy lessons using Canva for my Stage 2 and 3 students.
Using the NSW CBCA Collide Competition guidelines as my parameters, I tasked my Year 5 and 6 students with creating an engaging, one-minute book trailer. I also asked my Year 3 and 4 students to create an eye-catching poster for the book week theme ‘Reading is Magic’ and a notable book of their choice. These projects not only developed the students' literacy skills but also introduced them to new ways of storytelling and communication using images rather than just text.
I started by dividing my students into mixed-ability pairs and introduced them to a selection of notable CBCA books. They were given time to peruse the texts and choose one which they thought would interest them and engage them throughout their once a week lessons, for the next nine weeks. To give the students a clear idea of what they would be creating, I showed them examples of book trailers and posters from previous years and those I had created for them.
I walked them through some of the tools available to them in Canva and, for my older students, some of the changes that have been made since they last engaged with this software. This provided a comprehensive guide of what I was expecting students to create and set clear expectations for their projects.
Students read their chosen books thoroughly and used storyboards to plan their trailers. They noted key details such as the book’s title, author, illustrator, and publisher, and outlined the book’s main theme, message or information. This step is crucial as it requires students to read, think about, and understand their chosen book before they can reinterpret it in a visual medium.
Once I had approved each pair’s storyboard they were allowed to use Canva to bring their storyboards to life. Canva’s intuitive platform allowed them to add text, images, special effects, and music with ease. It also provided individual hands-on experience to allow them to understand the importance of visual and auditory elements in storytelling.
Peer review was an integral part of this phase, with students giving and receiving feedback to refine their trailers. Incorporating peer review is important because students inherently know what “looks good” and what “does not” and, while they may not be able to verbalise how to improve the work, they can offer constructive feedback on areas that they know need to be improved. This approach to teaching fosters a collaborative learning environment, encourages students to think critically about their work, and allows me to be a co-pilot with my class rather than just be the keeper of knowledge. Once completed, each group was able to showcase their creativity and visual literacy communication skills by presenting their book trailer to the class.
Book trailers are not just the literary derivative of movie trailers but are audio visual representations of texts. As a form of reader response, they require students to read, think about, and understand a book before they can reinterpret it in a visual medium. This process requires an in-depth understanding of a text's central themes and messages, as well as creativity and multimodal literacy. At the same time, they provide an opportunity to cater to different learning styles as students can engage with the content in ways that suit their preferences and strengths.
In much the same way as my Year 5 and 6 students created video book trailers, my Year 3 and 4 students used Canva to create book week themed and book related posters. I love seeing the year-on-year development of the students I teach as they develop their digital literacy and design skills to create more impressive posters in Year 4 than Year 3 and to then use these skills in their videos.
It is important to note that I recommend Canva as they offer a free version of their platform for schools. I did try, a few years ago, using iMovie to create these videos but have since found Canva to be a much more user-friendly platform that is accessible and easy to navigate.
The last piece of advice I can offer to anyone wanting to incorporate this into their teaching is to provide clear examples of what you want your students to achieve. I am more than happy to share additional examples of my student’s work as a starting point for you as these set a high standard for students to achieve. I also encourage you to create trailers of your own to share with your class. It is only through the act of diving in and ‘playing’ with the Canva software that you learn how to easily remove the background from a video, edit the audio levels on your music or add a background to your text so it ‘pops’ from the background image upon which it sits.
Overall, I have to say that this particular term’s work is one of my favourites of the year because I love the relevance of this area of the English syllabus. I find these projects immensely beneficial for my students as they cater to different learning styles and allow students to engage with the content in a way that suits their strengths. By integrating literature with digital storytelling, we can really enhance a learner’s literacy skills and foster their creativity. Students learn to communicate effectively using images and video skills and this is so important in our digital world.
This project was a fun way to combine traditional literacy with digital skills. It demonstrated that books can be brought to life in new and exciting ways, helping students to become more engaged and motivated learners. As a teacher librarian, it was rewarding to see my students develop these new skills and take pride in their creative projects.
I hope this inspires you to explore similar projects and continue to find innovative ways to teach literacy. Happy teaching and creating, everyone!