EDUA 5820 Building Film Study in Instruction
BUILDING FILM STUDY INTO YOUR INSTRUCTION
Students are typically enthusiastic, but passive consumers of films, which can make teaching them particularly challenging. As the curriculum has expanded in recent decades to include serious study of films as texts, teachers need to rethink how they incorporate film study into their courses—not just as “rewards” at the end of a unit or as easy lessons for substitute teachers—but rather as important works worthy of critical attention. Incorporating film study in the secondary classroom provides teachers with rich opportunities to teach critical thinking and writing skills, and to make connections between films and other texts, cultural movements, and historical contexts.
This course will help you unlock meaning in films by providing you with the language, methods, and viewing tools necessary for analyzing and teaching films in the secondary classroom. Whether incorporating film study into literary study, using a film to enrich a unit, or teaching a dedicated film class, teachers will learn the elements of film, develop a rich film lexicon, and practice various ways to study, talk, and write about film.