Movie Trailers and Story Grammar Marker

Before beginning a new book unit with my kids, I decided to do a fun little activity I found on the MindWing Concepts Blog, posted by Sean Sweeney.  For those of you who don't know who Sean Sweeney is, you MUST go check out his blog SpeechTechie!!! It is an amazing resource for how to use technology in the speech and language classroom.

The activity he posted uses the Story Grammar Marker (SGM) to help map out elements found in movie trailers, which are Abbreviated Episode for those of you familiar with the SGM lingo!  An abbreviated episode includes a Character and Setting description, a Kick Off, Internal Response, and sometimes evidence of a Plan. Movie trailers are the perfect way to depict that abbreviated episode structure.  It is also a great way to get students engaged and motivated!

Prior to playing the various movie trailers, we had a brief discussed on what a movie trailer was. Many students thought that it was a place where movie stars lived and/or got ready on set.  Makes sense! However, this is obviously not the movie trailer we are talking about. We talked about the word 'preview' and how a movie trailer is basically just a preview of the movie.  It gives a little snapshot of what the movie will be about.  We then discussed the word 'abbreviated'.  Some students heard of this word before but some had not.  I gave examples of abbreviating words (mr/mister, dr/doctor) and told them that abbreviating is making something shorter or a shorter version of a long word.  They latched on to the idea after those examples.  I compared the Abbreviated Episode to the Complete Episode, which is what we are used to talking about daily.  Last thing we talked about before playing the clip was how a normal Abbreviated Episode in a story usually includes the Tie Up, however a movie trailer does not include the Tie Up.  I asked them WHY they think that might be? We discussed that they wouldn't include the Tie Up in the trailer because then it would give away the ending! 

After these discussions, I gave each student a graphic organizer for an Abbreviated Episode (like the ones shown on the link for the activity above), a pencil, and a clipboard. They already had out their SGM student tools (they grab one off the wall right when they walk in the door, EVERYDAY).  

Here are the movie trailers I played (stopped after each trailer to fill in the elements- Character(s), Setting, Kick Off, Feelings, Implied Plan):


Planet 51 (I always do this one first-icons easily identified)

Finding Nemo

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Toy Story

Toy Story 3


This activity proved to be a fun way to get the kids more familiar with the Story Grammar Marker, while working on other skills as well! I hope all of you SGM users out there find it useful too :)