LANG.+ARTS--ELEMENT+OF+SUSPENSE--THREE+SKELETON+KEY

__**THE ELEMENT OF SUSPENSE **__ =After some pre-activities wherein students where exposed to early radio as a form of entertainment, they had the opportunity to listen to a CD of a professional reader of the short story THREE SKELETON KEY. A discussion ensued about how the author wove suspense into the words he wrote. We also discussed how the professional reader created suspense with his voice inflection. =

= After the professional reader, we had the opportunity to download Vincent Price's rendition (the actual 1950 radio recording). The students then compared and contrasted suspense from just text in the book to a professional reader with voice inflection to a group of professional radio actors that also used sound effects and music. = = = =We then watched a student-produced video of the short story that was found on YouTube and converted via Zamzar. Although humor was injected in the video, students then compared suspense through facial expressions of the actors and the ability to see the rats and the other dangers. = = = =Finally, students collaborated with two other students to prepare their own scripts and, in turn, Audacity recordings attempting to produce suspense through text, voice inflection, sound effects and/or music. They then chose one picture to illustrate the theme of their short recording; they placed all elements in a one-slide PowerPoint to present to the entire class. =

Below are a couple examples:

media type="file" key="New Project 13.m4v" width="300" height="300" media type="file" key="New Project 14.m4v" width="300" height="300"

