Materials Design by Prof. M.

Laura Garca

Materials writing
Analysis of the handout
Amura, Melisa; Aubin Florencia; Esposito, Maite

13

Take a look at the handout you created in small groups and try to find an answer to the following aspects: Identification stage Exploration of need Contextual realization of materials Pedagogical realization of materials Physical production

Identification stage: It is important to realise, as teachers, whenever we have the need to create our own material as the one available may not be the right one. Or it may be the case that the class requires some specifically made materials that we can only find by creating it ourselves. In our case, weve chosen an article about Martin Luther King, which we thought was interesting up to a point: the way it was presented and the activities that were included were not very appealing and did not require much from the students. Besides, there were not any real pre-tasks or final task in the lesson plan. Therefore, we decided to adapt the text and create our own handbook that would satisfy our expectations. Exploration of need: We explored other resources on the internet in order to have more things to create our handout. Weve even used some web tools so as to help us make the handout more interesting and nicer. The area of need/problem relies on the fact that the lesson plan only focused on reading skills and reading comprehension activities, so we decided to also include focus on the listening skill and on written and oral production from the students. Contextual realization of materials: The handout was created for 6th form students in a bilingual school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Pedagogical realization of materials: First, we want the students to look at a wordle with key words from the topic of segregation, racism, etc., and to discuss them with their partner. Then, we would like the students to share their opinions on the topic and their knowledge of the world (schemata). Then, we want the students to read a newspaper article about Martin Luther King Jr.. We want the students to be able to relate the words discussed before with the topic of the article and to be able to extrapolate key moments of his life to complete a timeline. Finally, we would like to show the students Kings famous speech I have a Dream and to make them create their own I have a Dream speech based on their life experience, and anything they believe is important, as if they were superheroes and could change the world. Physical production: When producing the handout we took into account the principles of readability and legibility. As regards legibility, we have chosen the Serif Typeface Calibri for instructions and text, but the Sans Serif Typeface Impact for the title of the handout. The newspaper article, however, has got a Decorative Typeface. Regarding readability, we focused on the four basic principles of visual design: contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. We are showing contrast by making headings stand out from body text by using very different typefaces for each. Repetition is seen in the structure of the layout, for example, by using the same graphics on the left side and top of the handout. Alignment is reflected in the placement of the activities and instructions, since everything is lined up and has the same structure. Finally, proximity is taken into account when placing together elements that relate to each other. We have also made use of faces, since we have incorporated an avatar of a superhero, and we have used bulleted lists too.