Movies in the Classroom

I'm a big fan of using movies in the English Language Arts classroom. I think that showing movies to accompany literary units is an amazing way to reward students for their diligence and also to show them that text doesn’t have to be written. There is a richness in film just as there is in literature. I know in a lot of districts there is a big push to show film clips instead of the film in its entirety. I disagree with this idea. Students need to be exposed to WHOLE STORIES. Many times what teachers are teaching has to do with ideas that take place over the period of the whole movie: plot structure, theme, character development, the hero's journey archetype. You can't show these things in a short clip.

Movies can hook kids into reading, and if you know anything about me, you know that I think there is nothing more important than creating readers out of non-readers. If a student sees a film based on a book, I always tell him..."The book is always better!!" If he liked the film, he will love the book. But a movie can still offer students a lot of interesting and important opportunities to delve more deeply into a story:

1.  Movies contain many of the things we want our students to be able to analyze in literature: plot, theme, character development, tone, symbolism, complex relationships, subplots, parallel plots, etc. Students who frequently have a hard time understanding these concepts in a piece of literature will often find it much easier to do so in a movie, probably because they pay more attention to film OR...they really have watched the movie but they didn't read the book. (Hey, I'm just being honest here.)

2.  Movies offer students the opportunity to compare/contrast the same story on two different levels. I especially like to watch a movie based on a piece of literature we have read so that my students can analyze the way the filmmaker brought the story to life. Students like to talk about what the filmmaker changed and why, whether their choices were effective, if things should have been done differently.  Together we can analyze if the movie or book is better and why. Talk about a real world application of what we're doing in the classroom!!

When I show a film, I like to show it in its entirety if I have the time. I require that my students complete a Movie Viewing Guide, which keeps them paying attention and also helps them to do some critical analysis of the film as they would do in a text. I use the guide to mark places I want to pause the film. We will watch a section, stop the film, and go over the answers for that section of the guide. 

You know what else? Movies are just FUN! Sometimes kids just need a break and movies allow kids to relax and enjoy themselves. Do YOU remember how much you used to look forward to movie days in school? I sure do. And the movies we watched were ghastly. lol! Teachers need to take advantage of student interest in film and use it. Who says education can't be enjoyable???? 

Not this girl.

My TPT store has several Movie Viewing Guides for students to use as they watch a movie in your classroom. The guides help keep students focused on the film and encourage some analysis of deeper issues. Check them out if you get a chance.