'Prezi'nt Images About Citizenship

• Citizenship by Ann-Marie Kishel (You could use any text about a Science or Social Studies topic and just change the theme of the quilt)
•  Lesson vocabulary words from the Reading/Writing word wall: imaging, informational text, main ideas, details, headings, illustrations, glossary, index, diagrams, bold words
• Set up the whiteboard
• One iPad to demonstrate with a projector or each student with their own iPad
• blank 9.5x11 page for each student
• red, white and blue piece of construction papers to make a 'quilt'
• 'Citizenship' title (I printed this out for the 'quilt')

This was a great book to use because it tied into our Social Studies unit. The pictures and informational text features provide lots of information and gave the kids lots of good ideas to put into a Prezi. 

Prezi is REALLY easy and super fun to use, but spend some time playing with it before the lesson and see how it 'plays' or focuses on the different bubbles as a presentation.  Here are 2 examples (they're only screenshots - they don't move around like real prezis) that I created about Abraham Lincoln and a book that we were reading in about 5 minutes. Creating the presentations works a little different on a laptop than an iPad, so familiarize yourself with the technology that you'll be using. In this lesson, you'll be demonstrating and working with kids to create a group prezi. The second graders are not really independent enough to use this site independently. It requires an understanding of the topic and how its organized, as well as the ability to move around and create new detail boxes. My goal was to help them understand the ideas can be organized and presented in a unique way.

Underlined words below are lesson vocabulary words that are emphasized and written on sentence strips for my Reading & Writing word wall. I pull off the words off the wall for each lesson, helping students understand this key 'reading and writing' vocabulary can be generalized across texts and topics.  The focus on acquiring and using these words is part of a shift in the Common Core Standards towards building students’ academic vocabulary.  My words are color coded ‘pink’ for literature/’blue’ for reading strategies/’orange’ for informational text/'yellow' for writing/’green’ for all other words)

Common starting point

• "We have used the imaging strategy a lot with informational text. It helps us to be 'active readers' and organize information so we can understand and remember better."
• "We'll be finding main ideas and details in our text today. Look over the informational text features that I listed.  Do you remember what they are?"  (Take a moment and review if necessary.)

Students need to be explicitly taught what the text features are, especially in informational text. Second graders tend to skim over the captions, lists, diagrams, and bold words because attending to these features means they have to switch gears mentally to do so, which is difficult and not what they're used to. However, not attending to the wealth of meaning that they offer to the readers means that they miss out on important ideas and clues about the main idea of the text. The Common Core Standards encourage us, as teachers, to spend time discussing these features, modeling our thinking as we examine them ("Oh, here's a list - let me see what it shows me..."), so students make a habit of looking at these features to gain information in a text. (RI.2.5)

Introduce the task

• "I brought this informational text because it has ideas about the Social Studies topic we are discussing. There are LOTS of ideas, so it would really help if you use imagery to organize the information."
• "We'll read through the book first and think about the image we could create so we can decide what kind of Prezi to use. When we use imaging with informational text, we need to understand the whole process before we visualize.  I'll read the whole book - listen and create an image in your mind."
• Read the book to the class and discuss how to organize the ideas. Ask the students what informational text features show the main ideas (headings) and what show the details (diagrams, diagram, bold words).
• I've included a video of my introduction to the lesson.

Modeling with the iPad

• Open Prezi and log in. Click on 'New prezi' in the top left corner.
• "We are working to describe what a citizen is. There's a main idea (heading) and then a some details that give examples."
• "I'm going to use the large circle (the main idea) surrounded by small circles template (details). I can add extra circle if I need to."
• "I'll pick a circle template from the bottom with 2 text boxes and then put 'What is a citizen' in the middle circle. Let's go back to the text and add a description - 'becoming a good citizen'.
• "In the circles around that, I'll add the words and take a picture that describe a citizen. I know that bold words are a text feature that let me know those are important words. 
• "In the first small bubble, I'll type 'member of a community' and take a picture from the book."
• These are videos of me creating a prezi - starting a prezi and creating a main idea and detail.

Guided Practice

• Remind students they can also use resources in the room for pictures. This is how I prompted them to look for ideas in the room for images. 
• "Help me find more details about this main idea. What are other ways that you can be a good citizen? Let me go back to the text for details."
• Take ideas about 'being born in the US' or 'working to become a citizen.'
• Take other ideas about 'learning about the US' and promising to be a good citizen.'
• This is the demonstration of the whole prezi that I created.

Describe the project

• "We have learned some great things about citizenship.  Let's show what we have learned by creating citizenship quilt."
• "Choose one way that you are a good citizen and make a poster on the blank page. I'll put those all together on a 'quilt' to show the ways we can be good citizens." 

Help as needed

• The kids had great ideas and really got a great start. Here's a picture of a student drawing their image.
• I stapled the pages together and put the 'citizenship' title in the middle.
• This is our citizenship poster.