Film and Media Studies and American Studies
Everybody loves movies. Teachers across all of the disciplines integrate moving images into their classrooms, whether that means full-length theatrical screenings, television episodes, or videos from YouTube. Incorporating movies is a great way to attract student interest, appeal to different learning styles, and diversify classroom activities. Films can also raise their own questions, deepening content-area discussion.
Every screening, small or large, is also an opportunity to
increase students’ visual literacy. Although students enter the classroom incredible
knowledge of media, they often have not been asked to look critically, to
understand how images create meaning. When you use media, think about
encouraging students to develop these critical capacities. This blog post will
introduce you to some ways to incorporate visual thinking strategies along with
your content objectives.
1. Before you show a
video or film, direct students as to what to look for.
Visual Literacy
Incorporation Level: EASY.
Films have many elements, and they all move! This can make it hard to keep track. Asking students to pay
attention to one aspect of a video will guide discussion toward your learning
goals. Let’s say that you’re showing Jimmy Fallon and the Roots’ adaptation of the Sesame Street theme song as part of a lesson within a class on Puppets in Culture. Here are two ways
to frame the video:
- Pay attention to how the theme is adapted for Fallon’s 21st-century audience. What instruments do they use, and how do they work together? How does Black Thought’s rap revise the original song?
- Pay attention to the performance of the puppets. How are the characters arranged, and what is the impact of their placement? How do the human and puppet characters interact with one another in this non-Street space?
2. Have students support their observations with visual evidence.
Visual Literacy
Incorporation Level: INTERMEDIATE.
Without specialized
knowledge, students can use close looking, prior knowledge, and contextual
associations to make strong observations. In the Fundamentals of Teaching with Images
and Objects workshops, we use a worksheet to guide a progressive (or “scaffolded”)
discussion, which you can adapt for your own uses. You can download that document here.
3. Integrate film
terminology into your discussions.
Visual Literacy
Incorporation Level: ADVANCED.
You don’t have to be a film scholar, or even have taken an Introduction
to Film course, to gain comfort using film studies terms. Learning the
terminology is itself productive, as students gain the ability to express new
concepts once they have the language to describe them. There are a number of videos on YouTube that
help to explain basic film terminology. One of the clearest and thorough (yet
not overlong!) was posted by user Scott Bradley and is called “Intro to Film Technique and Terminology.”
Using scenes from Lord
of the Rings, the video clearly illustrates a glossary of film terms. One
of the strengths of Bradley’s video is that he also describes the impact of
certain choices. For example, when
explaining camera angles, a scene between Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins clearly shows
how “Characters shot from low angles tend to be more powerful, commanding”
while “Characters shot from high angles tend to be weak, vulnerable” (2:04-3:17).
(If you’re looking for more examples and definitions than
Bradley provides, another great resource for film language is Yale Film
Studies’ in-depth online glossary, the Film Analysis Guide. )
One note: While The
Fellowship of the Ring is a perfect example of “classical narrative” (meaning
that all of the formal elements function to support an engrossing story) the
film or video for your class may be aggressively un-classical. An avant-garde
or ethnographic film, for example, is often not primarily concerned with
narrative. Not to worry! The same language applies to non-classical films, and
students who come to class with a lifetime’s worth of Hollywood films in their
head will be well-prepared to draw out the differences between narrative and
non-narrative filmmaking techniques.
To help students dissect an entire film, one strategy that I
have had success with is to assign different formal elements to different
students in the class. (This is the advanced version of the earlier suggestion,
directing students what to look for.)
Before the screening, I will write the terms that we have recently
learned on the board (say: lighting, camera movement, editing, sound), and ask
students to choose an element on which to focus their attention. I have found that this greatly improves the
quality of the discussion after the film, allowing us to talk in specific terms about how each of the elements work together to
create meaning – or, even better!, where
elements seem to clash with one another, and that effect that has within the
film.
The next time you want to integrate film into a course,
consider adding visual literacy to your learning goals. If you ask students
what they see, you’ll find out what they think, too!
