In search of creative project ideas for The Great Gatsby after spending the last few weeks hangin’ with Dr. Eckleburg and the gang? I hear you. And I’ve got three fantastic Gatsby project ideas coming right up! Let’s dive into how you can use a storyboard project, a themed digital blackout activity, or an open mind Gatsby one-pager to help your students use their critical thinking to bring their close reading to life on paper.
The Great Gatsby Final Project Idea: The Storyboard
The Gatsby Storyboard Project Curriculum
For this Gatsby project, students have a chance to step back and consider how they might create an artistic film version of a scene from the novel. This could be an especially good choice if you’re going to look at any segments of the Baz Luhrmann film as part of your exploration of the novel.
A storyboard is essentially a rough outline of the visual blueprint of a film. It sounds simple, right? But if you think about, incredibly intentional decisions need to go into composing every single shot, and in most video, shots never last longer than three seconds (try counting next time you watch).
That means someone (or some team) is planning out the angle, lighting, composition, camera movement, etc. in bursts of a second or two to add up to an hour and a half or two hour movie.
Amazing!
This roundup of examples from famous films is a great way to introduce students to the concept of a storyboard.
Then, I like to share some of the many film concepts I want them to think through as they start to work on scenes from Gatsby – things like camera angle and distance, length of shot, perspective, lighting, composition, and sound. A single moment in the text could show up on film in a thousand different ways.
It’s all about being intentional with their choices – creating a short sequence of shots that tells the specific story they are trying to tell, illuminating the interpretation of the novel that they want to showcase.
It’s actually so fun. Though I’m geeky that way, obviously. Students can choose the scenes they want to storyboard and start drafting in class – on paper, on Slides, on Canva, or however they want to do it. I recommend you have them create panels with notes underneath, in addition to crafting a short accompanying paper explaining the intentions behind their choices.
Once everyone is done, hold a gallery walk, giving students a chance to vote for their favorite storyboard across whatever cinematic categories feel right to you. “Best Character Feature,” “Strongest Use of Composition,” “Best in Show,” etc. Pro tip – always have space for students to vote and explain their vote on your ballots. It helps gallery walks stay purposeful, and not turn into a big group chat about what everyone is doing after school.
The Great Gatsby Creative Writing Project Idea: Digital Blackout Poetry
The Gatsby Digital Blackout Poetry Curriculum
OK, so for years I’ve seen the unbelievable blackout poetry of a few incredibly artistic students and wondered if there was a way to make such heights available to more kids.
Because let’s face it, we can’t all sketch a hyper-realistic dragon (ummm, can a dragon be hyper-realistic if it’s fictional?) into the blank spaces surrounding our blackout poem before blacking it out. Or create lifelike birds flitting across our poems. Or huge eyes staring between the poetic lines and into the depths of Pinterest-browsers souls (by the way, are we hanging out over there?).
So how can we give kids a chance to add that layer of visual interpretation to their blackout poems?
Recently I found the answer, and it’s digital blackout poetry. With the digital remix, students can create blackout poetry just like before, except they can easily overlay graphics, photos, drawings, and shapes over the top of their poem once it’s done, and they can use digital imagery that they curate instead of create (since not everyone is a talented sketch artist).
So let’s talk about how to take this concept and turn it into a creative project or activity option for The Great Gatsby: Gatsby Digital Blackout Poetry.
Start with some pages of text from the book. Since it’s in the public domain, you can cut and paste passages you are close reading in class from the Project Gutenberg version. Then invite students to choose one that relates to themes, ideas, or imagery in the text that they find particularly interesting. Have them skim through the page, searching for an overarching theme or idea from The Great Gatsby that can guide their word selection in the next step.
You guessed it, now it’s the next step. Now that students have their text and their big idea for their poem, have them go through and use the underline tool in Slides or Canva to choose words that stand out to them and fit with their big idea. They aren’t committing, just guessing what they might like to use. Once they’ve found their words, have them jot them down, in order, on another piece of paper in order. Then they can cross out any that they don’t like. If they need any connecting words like “the,” “a,” etc., they can go back to the text and see if they can find them – then underline those too.
Next, students can remove the underline on any words they don’t want, and read through their final poem to be sure they like it. Now it’s time for them to go in and add black rectangles around their words to black out the page. Or, depending on their program, they can use a “draw” tool in black.
If they wish, they can add a white rectangle in an empty portion of the page and add their full poem text on top to help it pop out for the reader.
Now comes my personal favorite part of this creative Gatsby class activity.
It’s time for students to highlight the big idea of their poem and the way it relates to Gatsby by using color and imagery. They can overlay photos, shapes, graphics, etc. to help make their underlying themes clearer for their reader. It’s all about using BOTH mediums – the verbal and the visual – to convey what they want to show about The Great Gatsby intentionally.
Once again, I’d suggest a gallery walk! And definitely a classroom display, or a display out in the hallway. Perhaps with a few loose pages, the directions, and some sharpies ready on a table if anyone passing by would like to get in on the fun.
The Great Gatsby Characterization Project: The Open Mind
The Gatsby Open Mind Project Curriculum
I love the open mind project as a venue for exploring characterization in a meaningful way, and it works beautifully for The Great Gatsby.
As with other open mind projects, the idea is to help students imagine what’s going on inside a character’s head, and, in this case, what’s influencing them from outside.
The first step is to ask students to think about a character from the novel. You can ask them to fill that character’s “Open Mind” with anything you want. Maybe you want to see it filled with relationships and motivations. Or history and dreams. Symbols and themes. Key quotations. All of the above.
Next comes inviting them to represent what’s happening in their character’s mind with intentional choices about color and representation. Ask them to think about what to put where and WHY, which colors and images to use and WHY.
Then comes the question of what’s happening around the character. In the space outside their head, what is influencing them? You can divide up the rest of the page and invite students to fill it with representations of key events, relationships, settings, etc. Whatever you feel is most important in helping showcase the depth of the characters in your text.
You can make this an in-depth project that works perfects as a final Great Gatsby project, or try it as a discussion warm-up or daily activity to help students dig deeper into character.
If you use it as a final project, you know the drill! Gallery walk, voting ballots, display… I suggest, once again, you do it all!
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