Film in the Classroom: Using Visual Texts to Teach Common Core Critical Analysis Skills Sylvia M. Spruill, Ed.D. Hillgrove High School Cobb County School District

Focus Statement Today the topic of discussion is film in the classroom and the goal is to learn how to engage students in critical analysis.

Rationale for Using Film Serves as a useful lead-in to teaching analysis of written text (literature and informational) Provides a more accessible medium for students to sharpen their analysis skills Uses a common and/or shared experience as the vehicle for teaching complex analytical skills Affects students ability to analyze and criticize literature (Golden, 2001)

Opening Consider the following: How have you used film in the past? What standards have you focused on when using film in the classroom? Jot a list of films or film clips you have used in the past or are currently using.

My Guidelines Film Clip vs. Full Film Purposeful Use Why are you showing this film clip? Teaching an analysis skill or literary element Developing a thematic connection What standards are you working on with your students? How will you assess what you intend students to learn? How will it move from identification to analysis to evaluation to synthesis and creation?

Introducing the Language of Film Analysis Film Terminology (handout) Paper camera Student application assignment (flip cameras)

Analyzing Author’s Choices ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. Film Clip #1: Fast and the Furious (2001) “Reading” Purpose: What do you notice? How does the director manipulate time and why?

Analyzing Author’s Choices ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. Film Clip #2: Schindler’s List (1993)Schindler’s List “Reading” Purpose: Why did the director use primarily a long shot? How do the events seem to affect Schindler and Ingrid? Describe the sounds heard in the scene. What is the effect of these sounds?

Analyzing Author’s Choices ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. Film Clip #3: Good Morning, Vietnam (year)Good Morning, Vietnam “Reading” Purpose (activity adapted from Reading in the Dark): Describe the visual pictures that might correspond to the song. Describe the emotions evoked while watching this scene. Define irony and its effect while watching the clip with sound.

Literature Connections Manipulation of Time “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Ambrose Bierce) Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien) Symbolism Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez) Any piece of literature where an author makes intentional choices…all of it!

Analyzing Development of Theme ELACC10RL2: Analyze in detail the development of theme over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details Film Clip #4: Philadelphia Unit Essential Questions: What does it mean to be the unfamiliar one, the outsider? What of yourself do you present when you approach an “outsider” or a “community” not your own. What do you conceal? How does knowledge of either the “outsider” or the “community” affect how you approach them?

“Reading” Purpose What do you notice? How does the director communicate that Tom Hanks’ character is the outsider? Camera angles? Editing techniques? Characterization? How does the director characterize… Denzel Washington’s character? Tom Hanks’ character?

Literature Connections “Handsomest Drowned Man” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) Stranger in the Village (James Baldwin) Any text with an outsider

Analyzing Author’s Choices ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. ELACC10RL3: Analyze how complex characters…advance the plot or develop the theme. Film Clip #5: He Got Game Reading Purpose: What do you notice? How does the director establish the relationship between the two main characters shown, Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) and Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen)? What do you learn about their relationship and how do you learn it?

Next Steps Use to teach characterization, setting, etc. - same approach (film clip then opening paragraphs/chapter of a written text)

Other Ways to use Film Anatomy of a Scene (NY Times Learning Network) Analyze opening credits or scenes He Got Game (Spike Lee) Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock) Analyze film trailers (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6) Action Comedy Drama Analyze a concept in different contexts (RI7) Heroism in The Dark Knight Heroism in the Real World Heroism in the Greek World (Troy and written classical texts) Analyze documentaries and/or clips (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6) Waiting for Superman (Davis Guggenheim)

YOUR TURN! Consider what you currently use in your classroom. How could you incorporate film in your current units of study? What films?

Thank you!