Audio and Visuals in a Presentation

1. Hold up two cards at the front: one with "Blue whales can be 30 m long" in thick 5 cm letters, one with the same words in normal handwriting.
2. Ask the back row to read each aloud. The handwritten one fails.
3. Write on the board: "If the back row cannot read it, it does not exist." Note the letter size that worked — roughly the height of a thumb.

1. State a main idea aloud: "The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived." Ask: "How big is that? Can you picture 30 meters?" Most cannot.
2. Show the cartoon smiling whale. Ask: "What do you know now that you did not know before?" Answer: nothing new — it shows a whale, and you already knew it was about whales. Label it "DECORATES."
3. Show the scale drawing: the whale beside two and a half school buses, labeled "30 m" and "school bus = 12 m." Ask the same question. Answer to fish for: how big it really is — longer than two buses. Label it "DEVELOPS."
4. Show the 40-word slide: "Blue whales are the biggest animals ever. They live in every ocean. They eat tiny animals called krill. They can be 30 meters long and their hearts are as big as a small car..." Ask what the audience does when it appears. Answer: they read instead of listening. Cut it live to a quarter: "30 m = 2.5 school buses."
5. Turn to audio. Ask: "When would a sound develop an idea better than a picture?" Take answers, then give the example: a report on how a blackbird warns other birds — you cannot draw the difference between its song and its alarm call, but a 10-second recording of each shows it.
6. Write the rule: "One idea per visual. It must add something. The back row must read it."

“Ask of every picture: what does my audience know after seeing it that they did not know before? If the answer is nothing, it is decoration — and big enough to read from there, or it does not count.”

1. Students choose one main idea from their own report and write it at the top of their planning sheet.
2. They choose which kind of addition fits it: a comparison (like the buses), a scale, a sequence of steps, a simple chart, or a sound. They make one visual on card with no more than ten words, or plan a recording.
3. Each student props their card at the front while a partner walks to the back of the room and reads it aloud. Anything the partner cannot read gets rewritten larger.
4. The partner then completes: "Your visual shows me ___, which I didn't know from your words." If they cannot fill the gap, the visual is decorating.

“Your partner's sentence is the test, not yours. You know what you meant; they only know what the card shows.”

1. Students complete the printable visuals page, matching main ideas to the visual or audio that would develop them.
2. Remind them it plans the visual rather than replacing it; the card from guided practice stays with their report.

1. Show one student's card from the front. The class says the main idea it develops and what it added. If they say only the topic ("it's about volcanoes"), ask "and what does it add?"