Before beginning the actual lesson, take this time to introduce the final project for Unit Two. Hand out the project guidelines and read through the entire guidelines together. Give students a few minutes to think about which director they would like to study and to confer with their classmates to decide if they would like to work together and/or make arrangements to watch the first film as a group.

Daily Warm-up (written on board): How could you instantly tell this clip was from a screwball comedy by its narrative form, artistic style, and thematic content? Explain.

Show approximately five minutes (or less) from the clip in Bringing Up Baby in which Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant are at the dinner party and she tells him that he has been following him around because of the "love impulse." End the clip with the scene in which Grant accidentally rips the back side of Hepburn's dress and they have to walk out together to keep her from being embarrassed.

Have students respond to the question on the board and build upon student responses to review the generic conventions of screwball comedies once again.

Hand out the Noir vs. Screwball worksheet. Read through the directions together. Either working individually or in pairs, students will fill out the screwball comedy portions on the matrix for: narrative form, thematic content, and characters (the artistic style portion is already filled out as an example). When finished, discuss what the students wrote down for these portions about the screwball comedy as yet another review of the generic conventions.

Instruct students that they will be filling out the second column (the film noir column) as they watch Double Indemnity, which is considered a prime example of the film noir genre. Tell students that they will just be recording their observations about the film and making guesses as to what they think the conventions of film noir are as they watch. Remind them that there is no right or wrong answer; they are just writing down what they think the film noir genre is like, based on what they see in this film. Also, read through the questions on the back of the sheet and remind students to be thinking of those questions as they watch the film. Hand out Double Indemnity filmographies and review them with the students. Students will not have to write a response paper for this film because they will be working on their Comparison/Contrast worksheets.

View Double Indemnity. Note: you may want to occasionally stop the movie at appropriate points and have students fill out a specific portion of the comparison/conrast matrix and/or discuss student observations as you go along. For example, after a scene which features some particularly dark, chiaroscuro lighting, you might want to pause and have students talk about the artistic style of the film. At appropriate points in the film, you can stop and talk about the threateningly dominant relationship of Barbra Stanwyck over Fred McMurray.

When finished, give students some time to finish recording their observations and responding to the questions on the back. Engage students in a large-group discussion about their observations and responses.

Watch the first 45 minutes of the American Cinema: Film Noir documentary. Pause the documentary at appropriate times to talk about what it says is the form, content, style, and characterization of the film noir genre.

If the students don't finish their Comparison/Contrast Matrices in class, have them take them home and work on them.

I designed this lesson to be a little more exploratory than instructional because I wanted students to have a little bit of experience identifying generic conventions on their own before I told them what I think the generic conventions are. I think the exploratory method can often be more effective in terms of helping students to retain the information longer, especially when it is followed up by a little bit of traditional instruction as well.