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Module
12 |
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Ideas
for Integrating Media
into English/Literature Instruction
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[ developed by students in CI5472, Spring 2004 ] |
Amanda Furth
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Create an iMovie which visually interprets a poem. Your two-minute movie should have a minimum of:
eight different images
one image with an effect
one transition
one audio effect
all the text of a ten-line poem
works cited
quality & depth of thought in visual interpretation
Amy Gustafson and Kathy Connors
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We feel that in teaching literature there are many movies that
you can choose that will enhance the students’ learning of literature
while also providing a look into an alternate text. After reading
To Kill A Mockingbird, for example, you do not need to
watch the movie To Kill a Mockingbird to enhance students’
understanding of the book. You could instead watch a movie that
parallels the story and have the students pick out these parallels
and also depict what themes, ideas, etc., were contrasting between
the book and the movie.
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To make things more concrete, here is an example. While doing
a unit on Ayn Rand’s Anthem, you could supplement the text
with the movie Antz. Then the students quickly see the connections
between texts and the differences.
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Tammy McCartney and Kimberly Sy
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Current educational theory emphasizes cross-curricular connections
as beneficial to student learning. A language arts teacher could
pair with, say, a social studies teacher and integrate their units.
For example, if the class were studying World War II, the students
could learn the factual basis of the time period in history class.
In the English classroom, the students could look at films that
depict different perspectives on the time period such as Come
See the Paradise (Japanese Internment Camp), Europa, Europa
(Jewish/German experience), and even the blockbuster Pearl Harbor
(mythic American experience). Students could then discuss and
be involved in activities that analyze the many ways the war was
perceived from the different film perspectives.
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Reid Westrem
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In thinking about the film/literature activity, I was reminded
of a parallel topic: the relationship between film and history.
There are several interesting books that deal with this subject:
The Columbia Companion to American History on Film
Revisioning History
Reel History
Visions of the Past
History Goes to the Movies
Reel v. Real
History by Hollywood
Past Imperfect
Some books that might be taught in an English class, such as
The Grapes of Wrath, are probably discussed in the titles
above.
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Anyway, onto the teaching activity:
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Jane Austen meets Hollywood
The idea of comparing Emma and Clueless is, of
course, not at all original, and the writing activity I’m
listing would follow a fairly standard set of lessons establishing
comprehension of the two works.
Materials:
Emma (1816), novel by Jane Austen: make copies of opening
pages
Emma (1996), film by Douglas McGrath starring Gwyneth Paltrow
Clueless (1995), film by Amy Heckerling starring Alicia
Silverstone
Activity:
Read the opening paragraphs from Jane Austen’s
Emma. Underline words you don’t know.
In the margins, briefly paraphrase the type
of information the author gives us. Setting? Character development?
For whom? Bracket each separate topic.
Now make a general statement about the author’s
tone (attitude, mood, feeling) toward the characters involved.
On a separate sheet of paper, imitate Jane
Austen and write the opening page of Clueless, the novel (approx.
300 words). Provide the same type of information, tone and diction
(choice of words); you may, however, paraphrase information.
In follow-up discussion, examine the choices
writers made and the rationales they give for their choices.
Dixie Boschee and Anne Holgrem
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While reading Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet,
I would show the same scene in two different film clips. For example,
I would show I.5 where Romeo first spies Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s
1968 film and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version.
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Before playing the first film’s scene,
I would prompt the students with the following questions (also written
on the board/overhead):
- What types of emotions are evoked in this clip?
- Why do you think you feel this way? (e.g., if you are sad, was
it the acting or have you had an experience that connected in some
way to what you saw?)
Students will take 5 minutes to write their
thoughts. I will play the second film clip of the same scene and
ask students to respond to the same set of questions.
Once they have finished their thoughts, I will
play both clips again and ask them to note if their responses changed
in either clip. If so, why did they think that happened?
Students will compare their experiences and
write which film clip best captured the play’s scene as read
in class. They will then pair with another student and share their
findings for a minute.
We will come back together as a class and
discuss which was more effective and why they felt that way.
We will continue reading or move on to another film clip.
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Daniel Gough and Adam Banse
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Adam and I discussed using film to compliment a reading of A
Separate Peace. There is no worthwhile version of this novel in
film, so it is a chance for students to learn about cinematography
and actually film some meaningful scenes from the novel themselves.
Lessons would involve analyzing the front cover of the novel to
understand how meaning is conveyed visually, sketching scenes in
order to communicate the mood, power, theme, etc., of that scene,
analyzing film clips to understand cinematic techniques, bringing
in their own clips, storyboarding scenes for their own productions
and finally filming and making an iMovie. A possible movie that
could be used to accompany that unit would be Dead Poets Society
which parallels the themes of coming of age in a private school
environment.
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Lindsay Kroog
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During my Holocaust unit I hope to integrate film. To do this,
one of my ideas is to integrate it through a webquest. This will
be my final project for this class, but I think that if I can send
students on a search that leads them to view some clips of survivors
and other such media it will help with their learning. I do not
think that showing a whole movie to my 7th graders would be advantageous.
Depending on the movie, it will be overwhelming and not age-appropriate.
Showing clips in short amounts through the internet would be more
beneficial, I think.
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Louise Covert and Rebecca Robertson
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When we study advertising, we look for fallacies in TV ads. With
8th and 9th graders, they learn all the different fallacies, and
then we watched commercials, and an episode of 60 Minutes, and the
kids identify the fallacies that they found within the commercials
or show. To extend this assignment into film study, we could select
a film that reflects popular culture and have the students look
for fallacies that they see in the fictional story.
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Talk about what aspects of certain cultures or social perspectives
these fallacies reinforce or discount. Students could talk or write
about these fallacies in relation to their own perspectives on society
and the world of media and film.
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Scott Devens
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I am thinking about designing a unit centering around the concept
of what it means to be an expert in something (anything!) and using
film study as a basis for teaching the concept. In thinking of an
“initial interest rouser,” about all I can think of is
simply posing the question: what is an expert and then having students
do a free-writing followed by share. Then, I could share my own
experiences with becoming an “expert“ at something; then,
ask students who are willing to share, what are they expert at,
if anything? Challenge is for everyone to experience the feeling
of being an expert at least once in their young life.
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Thinking of designing this inquiry-based unit around film study
and history of film. Would start by kind of modeling the process
of becoming an expert by investigating the film(s), Invasion
of the Body Snatchers, which was made in 1956, 1978, and again
in 1993. Having students use web resources such as filmsites, would
encourage them to keep digging (nowadays: linking) until they could
answer just about anything about the film. Students would keep a
portfolio of research. Perhaps each student’s research could
culminate in a session where other students interview them to decide
if they really are an expert. The Body Snatchers flicks
are a good place to start because they have some historical meaning
(some thought allegory to Communism) and the students would find
the genre interesting. Then the real, independent inquiry begins
as students work with partners or on their own to research ANY film they
are interested in to become an expert about it. Their final project
could be a paper or review. They could even post some of their comments
on the IMDB website.
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Jennifer Larson
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View the BBC version of The Tempest, Forbidden Planet,
and the Molly Ringwald version of The Tempest (or only
a particular scene). Have students discuss the way each was presented
and its merits and detriments. Next, students will in pairs write
a proposal (treatment, I think it is) of how they envision The Tempest
being presented, and what mood or theme their presentation will
highlight. Perhaps they could storyboard a scene as part of their
treatment. They will present this to the class and sell their idea.
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Jessie Dockter and Rachel Godlewski
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We like the idea of showing films or clips of films with themes
related to the literature being read in class. One idea is to take
a book like The House on Mango Street, and to discuss gender
roles and expectations in the story. Then have students choose any
film on their own to watch and analyze for the same issues. Students
could determine what messages the movie gave concerning the roles
of women or men in society. You could have them choose to focus
on either men or women, but probably not both. Then, students could
think and write critically about films that they normally just enjoyed
for entertainment value.
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There are other possible film and book connections to consider
as well: Cry Freedom could be paired with Waiting for
the Rain which is about apartheid in South Africa and about
the relationship between two young boys, one white and one black.
You could discuss the power dynamics and friendships in both stories.
Also, Life is Beautiful could be used in connection with reading
the memoir Night.
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Beth O’Hara
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At Hastings High School in the fall, I will be teaching two sections
of English 10, and one of books we will be reading is Night by Elie
Wiesel, the story of teenaged Elie’s experiences in Auschwitz and
Birkenau. In tandem with this novel, we will look at the film Life
is Beautiful, starring Roberto Benigni. I think it will be
interesting to see these different perspectives on that concentration
camp experience — one from a father’s perspective as he tries to
protect his young son, the other from the perspective of a son as
he struggles to save himself and his faith, in his father and in
his God. Pairing these two texts also will shed some light on the
seeming discordance between humor and life in a concentration camp.
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Katrina Thomson and Jennie Viland
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Fahrenheit 451 is a great book to talk about film/media
because the central idea of the book itself is the role of media
in modern life and how the oversimplification of information and
the “dumbing down” of society results in a society that
ends up giving up on reading altogether. With my students at Hopkins,
we have been making connections between our society and the authoritarian
one depicted in Fahrenheit, and how elements of our society are
frighteningly similar to the Bradbury’s futuristic one, from the
prevalence of constant CD player/headphones syndrome to reality
TV shows. The students have been looking at media ownership (we
even used the same circle/diagram handout Rick passed out tonight)
and TV addiction and how this kind of behavior could be the precursors
to Bradbury-like self-censorship in the not-too-distant future.
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The film of Fahrenheit 451 is an absolute horror — very
dated and really a “B movie,” but, nonetheless, it can
be used effectively in the classroom. Our idea would be to view
parts of the film, if not the whole thing, and have kids chart the
differences between the novel and movie. There are numerous glaring
differences between the two, from the way that the firemen and Mildred
are depicted to the casting of key roles like Mildred, Montag, and
Clarisse. After viewing the film, students would then take over
as directors of a more modern interpretation, including casting
the roles using modern actors and identifying ways that they would
change how the society is depicted.
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As a major writing piece in this unit, my students also created
the front page of a newspaper for Fahrenheit — they had to write
three stories relating to the novel — one a straight news piece,
one a “feature” article on a main character, and one an
editorial about an issue or theme from the plot. Students really
got engaged with this project and produced some pretty impressive
products.
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Jeffrey Wendelberger
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One film adaptation I frequently use is the movie version of
the book, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I love
this book, and most students I read it with also love it. But the
last few years I have worked with struggling readers and I find
that they have difficulty really connecting to the book. There are
a lot of subtle scenes in the book and some readers can get lost
during these parts. Especially with struggling readers I think they
have trouble making visualizations of the setting of this story.
It takes place in the rural south during the 1930’s and I
think struggling readers get lost when they cannot connect to this
time and place. The movie version of this book does an excellent
job of portraying the poverty and rural setting of this time. Using
Rachel Malchow’s taxonomy, this version of the book would
be classified as a faithful analogy. For the past few years when
I have taught this book, I have always shown the first third of
the film, then read the first half of the book, then shown the second
third of the film, then finished the book and finally finished the
movie. I normally do it like this because I think the book and the
movie do parts of the story well and other parts not so well.
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Erin Warren and Erin Grahmann
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The activity involves switching-up on the status quo. Show the
movie version of a book FIRST. This plan worked well for me when
I had a classroom full of struggling readers once a few years ago.
We watched the Disney version of Never Cry Wolf before
reading Farley Mowat’s book aloud in class. For those readers who
have difficulty forming visuals while reading, problem alleviated
(to some degree). I realize this isn’t a revolutionary concept,
but I was actually able to finish an entire book with students who
had a hard time finishing anything. I attribute some of that success
to hooking them with the movie first. |
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