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PicLits: SMART Goal Setting
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Activity Description
In this activity, students create a PicLit (a combination of words placed on an image to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture) that identifies one SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) goal for the school year.
Preparation
- Students should have basic keyboarding skills and be familiar with basic Web page navigation (including selecting items from a drop-down menu).
- Make sure each student has an e-mail address as this will be required for creating a PicLit account.
How-To
- Discuss the importance of setting goals, teach the steps to creating a SMART goal, and provide adequate practice evaluating SMART goals.
- Students practice writing their own SMART goals for the school year.
- Students evaluate each other's SMART goals and provide suggestions for improving the SMART goals.
- Direct students to the PicLits Web site .
- Students "Sign Up" and fill out the registration form.
- Students choose an image that visually represents one of their SMART goals from the scrolling bar at the top of the screen.
- Students compose their SMART goal in one of two ways:
- By dragging and dropping words from the text box below the picture onto the image and then selecting the down arrow to the right of the word to conjugate, capitalize, or change the part of speech, OR
- By choosing "Freestyle" below the image and typing the words onto the image.
- Students select "Save" to save the PicLit to their account and to the site Gallery.
- Students share their saved PicLit with the teacher by selecting "My PicLits," selecting the PicLit they want to share, choosing "E-mail it", entering the teacher's e-mail address and a short message, and selecting "Send."
- Students can also post their PicLit to a Web site by selecting "Blog or Share it" and copying and pasting the link on the target site, or copying and pasting the embed code in HTML mode on the site.
- Students present their PicLit to the class and discuss their SMART goal.
Teacher Tips
Encourage knowledge-sharing by seating technology-savvy students next to those with lower technology skills.
More Ways
PicLit can be used for virtually any writing task. Students can use PicLit to demonstrate knowledge of various grammatical forms, vocabulary and life skills. Here are a number of examples:
- Write a one-sentence description or story about an image.
- Choose a favorite proverb and type it on an appropriate image.
- Write a personal motto or creed and add it to a picture.
- Make an online greeting card.
- Write a short story about an image.
- Write about a goal, dream, or plan for the future.
- Write a summary or interpretation or paraphrase of a class reading on a fitting image.
- Write a one-sentence picture caption.
- Practice parts of speech by being required to write about a chosen picture using a certain number of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Practice syntax by putting words in correct order to form sentences or paragraphs.
- Practice vocabulary by changing a PicLit using synonyms.
- Choose a favorite song, find its lyrics online, and choose a suitable image on which to add the song's lyrics.
- Practice symbolism by writing poems, sentences, or paragraphs using abstract nouns that an image depicts.
- Practice word families by changing the adjectives to nouns (or vice verse or adjectives to adverbs) in a given PicLit.
- Make motivational classroom posters.
- Make a list of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs for a given image and have classmates guess which image the list belongs to and then write a story or description from the list of words
Program Areas
- ABE: Adult Basic Education
Levels
- Low
- Intermediate
- High
- All Levels
Tags
writing, digital literacy, digital literacy skills, goal setting, goals, keyboarding, learner goal setting, literacy, Pic Lit, Pic Lits, PicLit, PicLits, picture writing, poem, poems, poetry, publish, publishing, SMART goals, visual representation, writing on computer, writing project, writing projects, writing with visuals, creative writing