A fun way for students to express their understanding of a story, its themes, and main characters, is to create a movie poster. As students read The Crucible, they will start to see certain themes and imagery reappear and may also have some ideas about critical scenes within the play. Have students create a movie poster, complete with a title, casting, and an image that conveys important information from the story.
To make this a class assignment, consider giving each student a different act or scene to focus on. When students complete their posters, they can be printed out and hung in the classroom.
For additional templates to add to this assignment, check out our movie poster templates!
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Create a movie poster that evokes the theme, story, and other relevant information about The Crucible.
In order to make a movie poster for the story, students can first identify and pick a theme for the poster. Themes are central ideas that are the backbone of the stories and students can visualize these ideas to depict an accurate representation of the story. This can be anything such as a turning point in the story, the main conflict, etc
After students have an idea of how they want to represent the story, explain to them how they can choose a template for a movie poster on StoryboardThat. Students can pick a template of their choice or the one they think best represents their imagination.
According to their chosen themes, students can make changes to the template. Such as adding their own visualizations of the characters, taglines according to themes, and other information they think should be included in the poster. Students can also take references or help from their favorite movie posters and try to keep a target audience in mind while designing a poster.
Encourage the students to express their creativity as much as they want. They can choose their own color palettes for the poster and even draw the cover scene themselves. Encourage the students to add symbolism to their posters and use interesting wordplay for the taglines.
After students are done with their posters ask them to save and download the posters before exiting the website. Students can also print these posters and hang them in the classroom for a poster display event where all the students can look at each other's posters and discuss their perspectives.
Yes, using play-related symbols may give the poster more depth and significance. Students can illustrate these scenes by using symbolism such as a crucible itself, and symbols related to the witches such as the “hats”, “cauldrons”, or the “potions”. For a more mature poster, students can include images from the actual Salem trials or the items associated with them.
A movie poster for "The Crucible" should feature important people like John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and other notable figures. Additionally, it ought to include representations of the Salem area, objects that represent the witch hunts, and perhaps a crucifix or other appropriate symbols. However, the students should have complete creative freedom and add elements according to their chosen themes.