I had seen the idea of students creating book trailers for books, but it all sounded far too complicated to really try. I think the end of the year bug hit me, and I decided why not squeeze a possibly challenging project in to the last two weeks of school? :) Also, my students have been doing their book clubs with 8th graders, so I knew they would have a lot of support in the project.
We decided iMovie would be the best source since they have templates for trailers. I am so incredibly glad that I found an amazing resource at Learning in Hand. These iMovie trailer planning PDFs are AMAZING. My students summarized the story, decided what was important to go into the trailer without giving anything away, and planned out every shot with the planning sheets.
I'm so impressed with the final product. The students had a blast making them and enjoyed watching each others' even more. This will be an activity I repeat for sure!
Here is a little clip from one group's trailer for Million Dollar Shot by Dan Gutman:
