The Contribution Of Booktrailers To Reading
The booktrailers are a new form of presentation of the books in multimedia format. In general, they include a brief summary of the plot as well as the high points of the work, in general terms, in order to arouse curiosity and interest in it.
From the year 2000, booktrailers began to be used more and more, outside the publishing world, as a strategy to promote reading, specifically, in the primary and secondary academic sector. But what are booktrailers really ?
What are booktrailers?
The word booktrailer is an anglicism that denotes multimedia content, that is, presented in the form of a video, based on a literary work. In other words, it becomes a visual synopsis and also a first reference. They can also be taken as ‘advances’ of the story about which a book is about and with which it is intended to attract readers.
The booktrailers are very similar to movie trailers. In fact, these inspired its creation. The most outstanding characteristics are the following:
- They begin with the presentation of the publisher.
- They include quotes and short segments of the text (in written or narrated form).
- They contain images (still or animated) related to the text.
- They are short-lived, generally no more than 5 minutes.
In view of the characteristics mentioned above, the parts of the booktrailers come to be:
- Entry.
- Mention of the publisher.
- Presentation of quotes or extracts from the book (narrated or written).
- Image presentation: cover and internal illustrations (if any).
- Information about the author.
- Release date.
- Sales place.
In addition to being an effective strategy for attracting a public by publishers, booktrailers are a form of promoting reading, often made by readers for readers.
Booktrailers in the school context
The good use of technology and social networks is a very enriching dynamic in the classroom. But how? Well, in the classroom, an activity is proposed that consists of selecting a work, reading it, assimilating it, analyzing it and then working on its summary to present it to classmates in a brief but powerful way.
By going beyond a simple oral presentation, students connect in a much more organic way with the work and are able to have fun with it. On the other hand, the emotion that is experienced when devising the various strategies of suspense and surprise, allows them to develop their creativity.
The presentation of the booktrailer in the classroom is very refreshing, but also very positive. It inspires you to read and become more interested in different types of reading and to sympathize with different points of view, which, in short, promote a healthy critical attitude.
The group dynamics during the realization of the project allows the students not only to deepen the work but also to develop their decision-making process and their ability to work as a team and even put into practice values such as: patience, responsibility, tolerance, among others.
This is not a movie or a short
The objective of booktrailers is not to reveal the complete content of the book but to play with the intrigue generated by certain events contained in it to motivate others to read the complete work. Therefore, it is not about making a short film or a movie.
As a first encouraging reading a particular work, the booktrailers are a wonderful tool. However, it is essential that the teacher guide the activity in the classroom to maintain the interdisciplinary nature of the activity and not waste its potential.
An award-winning activity
Outside the classrooms, the making of booktrailers, both by students, amateur readers and publishers, is an activity that even has award galas. In them, the effort made and the quality of the result are mainly recognized.
Currently, one of the most prestigious awards is the Booktrailer Film Festival, a contest whose purpose is to promote reading and in which a large number of adolescents participate, from the 27 countries that make up the European Union, each year.
The idea is to innovate in terms of approach to reading and, of course, reduce the number of students with poor reading skills. For this reason, it is worth promoting this type of activity in the classroom but also at home, since this way, children and young people will be able to verify that reading is not a tedious activity, but quite the opposite.
