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)

TKES

• Planning• Professional Knowledge• Demonstrates accurate, deep, and current knowledge of subject matter.• Exhibits pedagogical skills relevant to the subject area(s) taught and

best practice based on current research.• Bases instruction on goals that reflect high expectations for all

students and a clear understanding of the curriculum.

• Instructional Delivery• Instructional Planning• Plans instruction effectively for content mastery, pacing, and

transitions.• Plans for instruction to meet the needs of all students.• Aligns and connects lesson objectives to state and local school district

curricula and standards, and student learning needs.

Opening

• Consider the following:• How have you used film in the past?• What standards have you focused on when using film in the

classroom? • What 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• Paper camera • Student application assignment (flip cameras or smart

phones)

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?

Mini-Lesson: Symbolism & Juxtaposition

• As you watch the film clip from Schindler’s List, pay particular attention to the following:• the girl in the red coat – Why do you think her coat is red

and everything else black and white? • The sounds you hear – both diegetic and non-diegetic –

Describe them. Why are these the sounds you hear?• Schindler’s List

• This film clip includes both symbolism and juxtaposition. Consider the clip and our discussion. Write your own definition of symbolism and juxtaposition.

Symbolism

• The use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.

• Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant.

• Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in. “A fetter”, for example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”.

• Thus, symbolic meaning of an object or an action is understood by when, where and how it is used. It also depends on who reads them.

*http://literarydevices.net/symbolism/

Juxtaposition

• a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts.

• In literature, juxtaposition is a useful device for writers to portray their characters in great detail to create suspense and achieve a rhetorical effect.

• It is a human quality to comprehend one thing easily by comparing it to another. Therefore, a writer can make readers sense “goodness” in a particular character by placing him or her side by side to a character that is predominantly “evil”. Consequently, goodness in one character is highlighted by evil in the other character.

• Juxtaposition in this case is useful in the development of characters.

http://literarydevices.net/juxtaposition/

Pulling it Together

• Now that you have viewed the film clip and reviewed the definition of symbolism and juxtaposition, how does the director use them? (For what purpose?)

• With your group, review Othello, Acts I-III, and look for examples of symbolism and juxtaposition. Identify it by including the Act, scene, and line number.

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 (1987)• “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.

Assessment

• Analysis mini-paragraphs (using C-E-I – claim, evidence, interpretation format)

• Framed Paragraphs

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)

• Juxtaposition• Othello• A Thousand Splendid Suns

• 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 (1993)• 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 (1998) - 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 Craft

Write 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!

drspruillhillgrove@gmail.com

www.drspruillpl.weebly.com