Hollywood Literacy

We can all relate to that childhood dream in school, one which visually will never be the same as more and more school classrooms become equipped with smart boards and projectors, of walking into a classroom and seeing that traveling TV stand from the AV room. To the average high school kid it meant taking a period resting your head on your desk while a movie played. Sure there may have been a guided notes you needed to follow along with or a journal response you needed to complete, but it was nothing you couldn't turn to your buddy in the hallway after class to get the required information. This is often a high school students response to watching a video.



If the audio still isn't working, I was having tremendous difficulty with it, the teacher begins by saying "Today class we're going to be watching a movie.." and the class rejoices until she finishes her sentence by saying "And we're going to be taking notes." The class immediate deflates and the student in red finishes the video by proclaiming "What?"

So how can using a movie in the classroom be more then just an excuse for teachers, and students, to mentally check out for a time being. Film can be an amazing resource if used correctly. There is a book I would love to bring to everyone's attention. I have read excerpts of it during my own studies and will very likely be purchasing it in the future as the few chapters I have read give some amazing insight into how to effectively use film. Here is the text.

One of the biggest things I have taken away is this; using a film is useless if the teacher simply presses play and walks away for the period. Even if there is some kind of exit slip or guided notes sessions students will lose focus. They will fall into two categories. They will either zone out and lose all focus of the film and the content involved or fall to deeply into the film to focus on the instructional content. Rather the teacher needs to implement intervals to allow the students enough time to absorb the film but not too long so they lose the instructional goals. Golden suggests using skills like predicting, creating inferences, and activities like 60 second quick writes to inject learning and instruction into the film.

For example when teaching S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" and using the wonderful movie adaptation have the students pause right afters Johnny's final words "Stay Gold Pony Boy." and complete a sixty second quick write about the significance of those words within the context of the movie.

There are so many more resources in this book including 25 fully drawn out unit plans about popular movie adaptations. That alone is worth the cover price.