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

My Story…

Focus Statement/Objective

•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

• Engages students in the task of analysis• 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 posted on ELA Wiki)• Paper camera• Student application assignment (flip cameras or smart

phones)

Framing

• LONG SHOT (LS): a shot from some distance. If filming a person, the full body is shown. It may show the isolation or vulnerability of the character (also called a FULL SHOT).

• MEDIUM SHOT (MS): the most common shot. The camera seems to be a medium distance from the object from the waist up. The effect is to ground the story.

• CLOSE-UP (CU): the image being shot takes up at least 80 percent of the frame.

Camera Angles

• EYE LEVEL: a shot taken from a normal height, i.e., the character’s eye level; 90 to 95 percent of the shots seen are eye level because it is the most natural angle.

• HIGH ANGLE: camera is above the subject. This usually has the effect of making the subject look smaller than normal, giving him/her the appearance of being weak, powerless, and trapped.

• LOW ANGLE: camera shoots subject from below. This usually has the effect of making the subject look larger than normal, therefore strong, powerful, and threatening.

Lighting & Sound

• HIGH KEY LIGHTING: scene is flooded with light, creating a bright and open-looking scene.

• LOW KEY LIGHTING: scene is flooded with shadows and darkness, creating suspense or suspicions.

• DIEGETIC SOUND: sound that would be logically heard by the characters in the film.

• NON-DIEGETIC: sound that could not be heard by characters in the film, but is designed for audience reaction. An example might be ominous music for foreshadowing.

Editing Techniques

• CROSS CUTTING: cut into action that is happening simultaneously.

• POINT OF VIEW: shows what things look like from the perspective of someone or something in the scene. It must be juxtaposed with shots of the actor’s face in order to make a connection with the viewer.

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)• “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)• “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…that means 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• Thematic Analysis – how does the author communicate

the message? (literary elements)

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 (opening credits & first scene)• Reading Purpose: • What do you notice?• What is the message being communicated through the opening credits?• Consider the music and its effect. • 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)

• Characterization Comparison Chart (Golden, 2001)

Considerations Film Character Literary Character

Behavior

Appearance

Dialogue

Feelings

Director’s/Writer’s CraftWrite a thesis statement about each of the two characters:

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!

sylvia.spruill@cobbk12.orgwww.drspruillpl.weebly.com