SILENT FILMS GIVE YOUR STUDENT’S A VOICE

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So many of us spend hours of our planning periods looking for the perfect resource for a lesson. We yearn for the moment when we find the perfect supplemental material, and we privately burst with pride when we discover the best thing to use!

I have witnessed several colleagues waste their time and energy looking for movie clips, only to be forced to throw it out because of one curse word.

Or how about those videos we all tend to find that seem amazing at first, but then finish with a very obvious bias we can’t morally bring ourselves to present to our students.

ENTER THE SILENT FILM.

No, I’m not talking about Charlie Chaplin kind of stuff! (Although, much of his work can be applied to classroom activities.) No, I’m talking about new, modern, edgy, gorgeous, and sometimes heartbreaking short films that contain little to no dialogue.

Ever wonder why your younger students love the movie Wall-E so much? Perhaps it’s because there is very little dialogue in the film compared to others. Viewers are allowed to experience their feelings fully because they’re focused on the imagery instead of the words.

Nowadays, there are hundreds if not thousands of silent films ready to be enjoyed in classrooms. They are anywhere between two and fifteen minutes long and they work for any age group. Seriously, ANY age group! (I hear all you high school teachers groaning about yet another elementary classroom idea! Don’t throw this article away yet! I’m not finished.)

Silent films are easily adaptable to meet your myriad of objectives. These short and emotional films and be adapted for things such as characterization, stereotypes, cause and effect, prediction, and even dialogue writing. The possibilities are endless!

These films often have zero talking, which also makes it a perfect accommodation for visual learners as well as for the ESL students you may have. They are unintimidating and enjoyable and the perfect addition for your next multimedia lesson.

HOW TO USE SILENT FILMS IN A CLASSROOM:

  Bell Ringer/Warm-up

Start the lesson with an essential question—whatever you’re trying to teach that day. Allow students to enter the class, and silently draw their attention to the question. Then, play the silent film. When it’s finished, allow your students to digest what they just saw and ask them to use the video to answer the question on the board. You can ask students to think-pair-share their ideas or simply lead a whole class discussion.

  This approach is a great way to gently bring students into a

lesson. It will also increase their engagement in the lesson since it’s such a creative approach.

  Fair warning, don’t do this too often, or you will spoil your

students. Trust me, from personal experience, they will begin to revolt on days you don’t have a video ready for the start of class!

One video I absolutely love to use as an intro can be found by clicking here. It’s titled “Doll Face” and the video shows a robot with a human face watching ads on a television. The robot woman then tries to copy the images she sees on the ad. At the end of this four-minute film, the TV moves away from the robot, the machine struggles to reach the TV, and it ends up breaking itself in the process.

Obviously, this video would be for middle school and older, but the message is very strong. It’s a great intro to persuasion, effects of advertising, digital literacy, conformity, and other social issues we often cover related to classroom texts.

PRACTICE & CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING Silent films are a great way to allow your students to practice a new

concept without feeling intimidated. Provide your students with a simple graphic organizer that aims to help them practice a new concept, and then allow them to enjoy the film while completing your activity.

  One of my more memorable lessons was when I was covering the idea

of making predictions. Everything was all about the grammatical structures and linkers related to future predictions. I found this adorable video called “Colors of Evil”. In this short film, a girl tries to beat a bully by conjuring up a monster. The only problem is that the girl’s monster is absolutely drop-dead adorable. However, at the end of the movie, there’s a surprising monster-like quality hidden inside the cute creation. Students never predict that the cute monster is a killer, so it’s a fun way to predict what will happen next.

  Likewise, the film “Partly Cloudy” is perfect for a lesson about

prediction!

CLOSURE For the teachers with older and more mature classes, my absolute,

all time favorite video will always be “Sebastian’s Voodoo”. This is a four-minute video that rips your heart out! Please! Watch it right now! I’ll wait.

Welcome back. I see that you’re misty eyed. That’s okay. It happens to me every time I watch “Sebastian’s Voodoo”. In only four minutes, we are introduced to tortured voodoo dolls. They are scared, they are helpless, and then two of them work together to escape. One is caught and tortured, the other sacrifices himself to help all the others. The music alone is worth reveling in!

This video is an amazing tool to teach about empathy, characterization, self-sacrifice, and even bullying. It’s an amazing springboard to a final until discussion.

(I first found this film as a discussion topic related to the ending of Of Mice and Men. If you’re familiar with the novella, then you see the connections.

WHERE TO FIND SILENT FILMS:

Check out the Silent Films Internet Archive for a collection of silent films.

The British Film Institute (BFI) has a great collection as well.

Open culture keeps an archive of usable silent films you might want to use in your classroom.

Of course, my favorite way to find new videos is to lose myself in Youtube for a while. Start by using the search term, Silent films” or start with a silent film you know you love and take the recommendations from there.

HOW TO EDIT THE VIDEO TO YOUR LIKING: There is a free website you can use to edit videos and

create quizzes about a chosen video. The site is called Edpuzzle. It’s incredibly user friendly and can help you engage your students in the classroom or at home while they watch a video of your choice. With Edpuzzle, you can trim a video down, record your voice over a movie to educate your students, or pause the movie momentarily while students answer a listening question about the film. Depending on how interested you are, Edpuzzle allows your students to register so you can keep track of their success with your assignments.

However, I frequently use Edpuzzle films in my instruction as a way to pause and create student discussion and interest.

SILENT FILMS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS:

Balance Octopodi Partly Cloudy Runaway The Colors of Evil

SILENT FILMS FOR TEENAGE AND ADULT LEARNERS:

Changing Batteries Children God is a DJ Identity Man Partly Cloudy Sebastian’s Voodoo Zero

Feel free to explore and experiment with these types of supplemental materials. You will find that students are entertained and engaged with these videos because they give them time to think about your lesson without listening to voices.

It’s amazing what students will say about these silent films! Just sit back, relax, watch, enjoy, and wait for your students’ personal reactions to blossom before you!

FOR MORE ACTION PACKED STRATEGIES Connect with me Ms. Wright, founder of Isen

Wright Academy, Via Linked in or Twitter for more tips, tricks and strategies to catapult your students’ success in their educational pursuits.

Links in the description!