Film in the Classroom:
Using Visual Texts to Teach Common
Core Critical Analysis Skills
Sylvia M. Spruill, Ed.D.
Hillgrove High School
Cobb County School District
My Story…
• Today the topic of discussion
is film in the classroom and
the goal is to learn how to
engage students in critical
analysis.
Focus Statement
• Serves as a useful lead-in to teaching analysis of written
text (literature and informational)
• Provides a more accessible medium for students to
sharpen their analysis skills
• Uses a common and/or shared experience as the vehicle
for teaching complex analytical skills
• Engages students in the task of analysis
• Affects students ability to analyze and criticize literature
(Golden, 2001)
Rationale for Using Film
• Consider the following:
• How have you used film in the past?
• What standards have you focused on when using film in the
classroom?
• Jot a list of films or film clips you have used in the past or
are currently using.
Opening
• Film Clip vs. Full Film
• Purposeful Use
• Why are you showing this film clip?
• Teaching an analysis skill or literary element
• Developing a thematic connection
• What standards are you working on with your students?
• How will you assess what you intend students to learn?
• How will it move from identification to analysis to
evaluation to synthesis and creation?
My Guidelines
• Film Terminology (handout posted on ELA Wiki)
• Paper camera
• Student application assignment (flip cameras or smart
phones)
Introducing the Language
of Film Analysis
• ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices
concerning how to structure a text, order events within it
(e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing,
flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or
surprise.
• Film Clip #1: Fast and the Furious (2001)
• “Reading” Purpose:
• What do you notice?
• How does the director manipulate time and why?
Analyzing Author’s Choices
• ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning
how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel
plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create
such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
• Film Clip #2: Schindler’s List (1993)
• “Reading” Purpose:
• Why did the director use primarily a long shot?
• How do the events seem to affect Schindler and Ingrid?
• Describe the sounds heard in the scene. What is the effect of these
sounds?
Analyzing Author’s Choices
• ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning
how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel
plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create
such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
• Film Clip #3: Good Morning, Vietnam (year)
• “Reading” Purpose (activity adapted from Reading in the
Dark):
• Describe the visual pictures that might correspond to the song.
• Describe the emotions evoked while watching this scene.
• Define irony and its effect while watching the clip with sound.
Analyzing Author’s Choices
• Manipulation of Time
• “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Ambrose Bierce)
• Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)
• Symbolism
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
• In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez)
• Any piece of literature where an author makes intentional
choices…that means all of it!
Literature Connections
• ELACC10RL2: Analyze in detail the development of theme
over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is
shaped and refined by specific details
• Film Clip #4: Philadelphia
• Unit Essential Questions:
• What does it mean to be the unfamiliar one, the outsider?
• What of yourself do you present when you approach an “outsider”
or a “community” not your own. What do you conceal?
• How does knowledge of either the “outsider” or the “community”
affect how you approach them?
Analyzing Development of Theme
• What do you notice?
• How does the director communicate that Tom Hanks’
character is the outsider?
• Camera angles?
• Editing techniques?
• Characterization?
• How does the director characterize…
• Denzel Washington’s character?
• Tom Hanks’ character?
“Reading” Purpose
• “Handsomest Drowned Man” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
• “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (Gabriel Garcia
Marquez)
• Stranger in the Village (James Baldwin)
• Any text with an outsider
• Thematic Analysis – how does the author communicate
the message? (literary elements)
Literature Connections
• ELACC10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how
to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and
manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as
mystery, tension, or surprise.
• ELACC10RL3: Analyze how complex characters…advance the plot
or develop the theme.
• Film Clip #5: He Got Game (opening credits & first scene)
• Reading Purpose:
• What do you notice?
• What is the message being communicated through the opening
credits?
• Consider the music and its effect.
• How does the director establish the relationship between the two
main characters shown, Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) and
Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen)?
• What do you learn about their relationship and how do you learn it?
Analyzing Author’s Choices
• Use to teach characterization, setting, etc. - same
approach (film clip then opening paragraphs/chapter of a
written text)
• Characterization Comparison Chart (Golden, 2001)
Next Steps
Considerations
Film Character
Literary
Character
Behavior
Appearance
Dialogue
Feelings
Director’s/Writer’s
Craft
Write a thesis statement about each of the two characters:
• Anatomy of a Scene (NY Times Learning Network)
• Analyze opening credits or scenes
• He Got Game (Spike Lee)
• Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
• Analyze film trailers (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6)
• Action
• Comedy
• Drama
• Analyze a concept in different contexts (RI7)
• Heroism in The Dark Knight
• Heroism in the Real World
• Heroism in the Greek World (Troy and written classical texts)
• Analyze documentaries and/or clips (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6)
• Waiting for Superman (Davis Guggenheim)
Other Ways to use Film
YOUR TURN!
Consider what you currently use in your
classroom. How could you incorporate film in
your current units of study? What films?
Thank you!
sylvia.spruill@cobbk12.org
www.drspruillpl.weebly.com