Teaching Film, Television, and Media

Chapter 10: Intergrating Media into the English Curriculum

[10.1] Teaching Strategies for Interpreting and Constructing Media Texts

[10.2] Studying Film Adaptations of Literature and Theater

[10.2a] Different Modes of Adaptation

[10.3] Organizing the Curriculum Around Teaching Strategies for Interpreting and Constructing Media Texts

[10.3a] Comparing Differences in Experience of Different Types of Media

[10.3b] Interpreting and Producing Narratives

[10.3c] Interpreting Characters’ Actions, Beliefs, Agendas, Goals

[10.3d] Contextualizing Texts in Terms of Cultural and Historical Worlds

[10.3e] Defining Intertextual / Hyptertextual Connections Between Texts

[10.3f] Uses of Intertextuality in Language Use and Voices in Chat, Blogs, or MOOs

[10.3g] Judging Quality of Literary and Media Texts

[10.4] Designing Units

[10.4a] Techniques for Developing Units

[10.4b] Evaluation and Assessment of Learning

[10.5] References

Chapter 10

[10.3g] Judging Quality of Literary
and Media Texts

To inductively derive some criteria for judging, for example, film quality, students could go on-line to some of the leading film review sites:

[10.3g.1] Rotten Tomatoes
[10.3g.2] Movie Review Query Engine
[10.3g.3] Internet Movie Date Base
[10.3g.4] Check the Grid
[10.3g.5] All Watchers
[10.3g.6] MetaCritic

[10.3g.7] Click here for Tim McCormick's Literary Critic, an collaborative exchange site to engage in on-line critical analysis.

Oscar winners sites:

[10.3g.8] Oscar.com
[10.3g.9] Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
[10.3g.10] IMDB site [ past best movie winners ]
[10.3g.11] “And the Winner Is . . . Exploring the Role of the Academy Awards and Film in American Society” [ New York Times Lesson Plan ]

[10.3g.12] Pop Matters

[10.3g.13] Students could formulate criteria for judging the quality of television journalism in terms of objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and balance. For criteria employed in judging student television productions: National Student Television Award of Excellence

[10.3g.14] They could also formulate criteria for judging prime-time television drama programs: Helena Sheehan, “Criteria for Criticising TV Drama.”

[10.3g.15] The Cornell University Library site identifies five criteria as relevant for judging the quality of web sites.

[10.3g.16] Kathy Schrock's educator sites [ lots of links on evaluating web sites ]

[10.3g.17] Yahooligans Teachers’ Guide [ accessibility, accuracy, appropriate, and appealing ]

[10.3g.18] University of California, Berkeley Library

[10.3g.19] Rhetoric of Mass Media

[10.3g.20] Students could also judge a totally new form of art, “Web art,” by going to the Museum of Web Art and assessing examples of Web art at that site.

[10.3g.21] Webquest: Evaluating Webbed Sources for Research [ Michael Day ]

[10.3g.22] Webquest: Art criticism [ judging based on groups making presentations related to description, analysis, interpretation, and judgments ]

[10.3g.23] Webquest: Art criticism [ judging based on an art history approach ]

[10.3g.24] Lesson: “And the Winner Is,” Evaluating Movies

[10.3g.25] Dean Duncan: Evaluating Movies: Some Critical Criteria

[10.3g.26] A. O. Scott, New York Times film critic: evaluating movies

[10.3g.27] Reading and Writing Film Reviews

[10.3g.28] Dartmouth Writing Program: The Challenge of Writing about Films

[10.3g.29] Google: online film criticism

[10.3g.30] Online Film Critics Society (based on Rottentomatoes ratings)

[10.3g.31] efilmcritic.com

[10.3g.32] Everyonesacritic: share film criticism

[10.3g.33] Independent Film Critics