(Kist) Great Films and How to Teach Them

 

This post will reference William V. Costanzos Great Films and How to Teach Them

“what is peculiarly filmic and what is peculiarly novelistic cannot be converted without destroying an integral part of each” (Costanzo 10).

Yet another great debate: which is better; the film or the book? While teachers struggle to find ways to incorporate multi-modalities into the classroom, they are also asking questions such as that. Look at just a few of the book to film adaptations:

(click on any image to find out more)

Then you can look more at young adult literature and their movie counterparts:

And those are really just a few…

So how do we use films in the classroom?

• · Do you read the book then watch the entire film?
• · Do you watch the film first?
• · Do you read the book and just watch select clips?
• · Do you forego the film entirely?
• · Do you use the film with every novel that has one?
• · Do you use a modern or older version?
• · Do you use films without a novel?
• · If so, which films do you choose?

There are at least a couple dozen questions teachers could ask about using movies in the classroom. For me, the questions would all be narrowed down to one: What do you plan to accomplish by using a film? From there, it will be much easier to choose which film and how it will be used (i.e. the whole thing, clips, which version, for which texts, etc.).

How can films be beneficial to students?

Critical Analysis of text is a key component of education. Allowing students to become familiar with analyzing several types of text can create a more informed and observant perspective for students.

Variety in the classroom can lead to students whose attention is retained rather than lost. How many times do you look at a class of students and see the majority of them not focused on the lesson, doodling in a notebook or even nodding off? I’d have to say that this is a regular situation in some classrooms. Keeping students interested in the material by giving them something visual to analyze may help those students who struggle with lectures.

Cross-Training is another way of saying that students use the skills they have applied in one situation to a different situation. Giving students assignments that go along with watching a movie is a good way to see how your students are able to apply the knowledge they have acquired to many situations.

Compare- Contrast skills can be developed with assignments which ask students to compare and/or contrast the movie with the book. Along with this, the use and analysis of plot elements and literary devices can be solidified. The most common task with this idea is the simple compare- contrast paper, but it could be expanded to apply to other texts that students have read.

Reinforce ideas from a text by showing parts of a film. If students are confused by a particular scene in Macbeth, for example, perhaps showing them a short clip of that scene would be beneficial to their understanding.

“ films allow the teaching of longer works that might otherwise be omitted or of controversial works that might be excluded from the curriculum. The example she gives is of Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Although it is definitely an adult film, its screenplay contains none of the potentially objectionable material or language that appears in the original play” (Aiex).

Awarensess of film production terms and concepts allows students to better understand how their entertainment is created and why some of the decisions concerning the movie were made.

Interaction with the mass media is something that students encounter every day. When students are asked to analyze messages they are receiving, they begin to develop an understanding of how they are influenced by the media. This could work well with a unit on safety, in particular internet safety, which also asks students to analyze hidden messages they are being sent.

In the end, what function do films serve in the classroom?

 

They are a text, to be used as we would use any other text. Careful planning and orchestration of films, novels, poems and various other forms of text are necessary to developing a varied curriculum which enriches and interests students.