Sylvia M. Spruill, Ed.D.
Hillgrove High School
Cobb County School District

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Serves as a useful lead-in to teaching analysis of written text (literature and informational)
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Provides a more accessible medium for students to sharpen their analysis skills
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Uses a common and/or shared experience as the vehicle for teaching complex analytical skills
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Engages students in the task of analysis
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Affects students ability to analyze and criticize literature
(Golden, 2001)

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Consider the following:
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How have you used film in the past?
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What standards have you focused on when using film in the classroom?
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Jot a list of films or film clips you have used in the past or are currently using.

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Film Clip vs. Full Film
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Purposeful Use
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Why are you showing this film clip?
• Teaching an analysis skill or literary element
• Developing a thematic connection
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What standards are you working on with your students?
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How will you assess what you intend students to learn?
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How will it move from identification to analysis to evaluation to synthesis and creation?

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Film Terminology (handout posted on ELA Wiki)
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Paper camera
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Student application assignment (flip cameras or smart phones)

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LONG SHOT (LS): a shot from some distance. If filming a person, the full body is shown. It may show the isolation or vulnerability of the character (also called a
FULL SHOT).
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MEDIUM SHOT (MS): the most common shot. The camera seems to be a medium distance from the object from the waist up. The effect is to ground the story.
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CLOSE-UP (CU): the image being shot takes up at least
80 percent of the frame.

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EYE LEVEL: a shot taken from a normal height, i.e., the character’s eye level; 90 to 95 percent of the shots seen are eye level because it is the most natural angle.
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HIGH ANGLE: camera is above the subject. This usually has the effect of making the subject look smaller than normal, giving him/her the appearance of being weak, powerless, and trapped.
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LOW ANGLE: camera shoots subject from below. This usually has the effect of making the subject look larger than normal, therefore strong, powerful, and threatening.

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HIGH KEY LIGHTING: scene is flooded with light, creating a bright and open-looking scene.
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LOW KEY LIGHTING: scene is flooded with shadows and darkness, creating suspense or suspicions.
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DIEGETIC SOUND: sound that would be logically heard by the characters in the film.
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NON-DIEGETIC: sound that could not be heard by characters in the film, but is designed for audience reaction. An example might be ominous music for foreshadowing.

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CROSS CUTTING: cut into action that is happening simultaneously.
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POINT OF VIEW: shows what things look like from the perspective of someone or something in the scene. It must be juxtaposed with shots of the actor’s face in order to make a connection with the viewer.

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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.
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Film Clip #1: Fast and the Furious (2001)
• “Reading” Purpose:
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What do you notice?
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How does the director manipulate time and why?

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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.
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Film Clip #2:
Schindler’s List
(1993)
• “Reading” Purpose:
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Why did the director use primarily a long shot?
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How do the events seem to affect Schindler and Ingrid?
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Describe the sounds heard in the scene. What is the effect of these sounds?

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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.
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Film Clip #3: Good Morning, Vietnam (year)
• “Reading” Purpose (activity adapted from Reading in the
Dark):
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Describe the visual pictures that might correspond to the song.
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Describe the emotions evoked while watching this scene.
• Define irony and its effect while watching the clip with sound.

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Manipulation of Time
• “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Ambrose Bierce)
• Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)
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Symbolism
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Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
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In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez)
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Any piece of literature where an author makes intentional choices…that means all of it!

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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
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Film Clip #4: Philadelphia
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Unit Essential Questions:
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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?
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How does knowledge of either the “outsider” or the “community” affect how you approach them?

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What do you notice?
• How does the director communicate that Tom Hanks’ character is the outsider?
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Camera angles?
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Editing techniques?
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Characterization?
• How does the director characterize…
• Denzel Washington’s character?
• Tom Hanks’ character?

• “Handsomest Drowned Man” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
• “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (Gabriel Garcia
Marquez)
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Stranger in the Village (James Baldwin)
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Any text with an outsider
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Thematic Analysis – how does the author communicate the message? (literary elements)

• 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.
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ELACC10RL3: Analyze how complex characters…advance the plot or develop the theme.
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Film Clip #5: He Got Game (opening credits & first scene)
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Reading Purpose:
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What do you notice?
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What is the message being communicated through the opening credits?
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Consider the music and its effect.
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How does the director establish the relationship between the two main characters shown, Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) and
Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen)?
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What do you learn about their relationship and how do you learn it?

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Use to teach characterization, setting, etc. - same approach (film clip then opening paragraphs/chapter of a written text)
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Characterization Comparison Chart (Golden, 2001)

Considerations Film Character Literary
Character
Behavior
Appearance
Dialogue
Feelings
Director’s/Writer’s
Craft
Write a thesis statement about each of the two characters:

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Anatomy of a Scene (NY Times Learning Network)
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Analyze opening credits or scenes
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He Got Game (Spike Lee)
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Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
• Analyze film trailers (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6)
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Action
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Comedy
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Drama
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Analyze a concept in different contexts (RI7)
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Heroism in The Dark Knight
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Heroism in the Real World
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Heroism in the Greek World (Troy and written classical texts)
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Analyze documentaries and/or clips (as rhetoric – RI5 and RI6)
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Waiting for Superman (Davis Guggenheim)

Consider what you currently use in your classroom. How could you incorporate film in your current units of study? What films?