Lesson Plans
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will demonstrate their ability to create media using generic conventions and their own experiences and creativity to write, plan and film a short scene from a teen movie.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description: Moving beyond simple fidelity analysis, students will learn to consider not only the texts when analyzing an adaptation and its source text, but also the context within which each was created. Completing this more comprehensive analysis is important to understanding the complexity of adaptations.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will split into jigsaw groups to read an article about the history of Hollywood during the Golden Era. They will then reform groups and teach the other students about the most important points in their articles.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
Through lecture or small group research and reporting, the students will learn about historical changes in media financing and ownership and the resulting consequences. The class will investigate the objectives of media reporting, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and limits on freedom of the press. They will also read and analyze editorial content and write there own rebuttals or editorials.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students are given a packet of film vocabulary terms. The packet contains a series of graphic organizers which help to visually represent the relationship of different film terms. The students will fill out the definitions of the vocabulary terms as they are presented in a lecture with film clip examples.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
This lesson is based off of the philosophies presented in several articles read in class that Media Literacy Education can be incorporated into any sort of curriculum, and should be. It should not be separate from the things students are studying in any classroom. The idea for this lesson is that any High School government or History Class will cover in some form or fashion the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Because the first amendment is so essential in who we are as Americans, we should spend more time with it, in order for students to better connect with the very basis of the freedoms involved in how our government is set up.
While this lesson does not teach media specifically, it teaches about how to analyze media and how that shows what sort of freedom of expression is being employed, as well as have them think about what sorts of media they could use in order to personally be involved in the First Amendment.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students review the concepts of first-person and third-person point of view and then learn how that equates to the Expository and Personal Voice modes of documentary film. Afterwards, they discuss in groups whether the presence of the camera affects one's behavior or not and use that discussion as a lead-in to learning about the Observational Cinema and Cinema Verite modes of documentary film. The students then watch a brief documentary and identify which mode the documentary is in.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
Through class brainstorming and discussion, students will recognize the role that political advertising plays in political campaigns in the United States. Through direct instruction and note-taking, the students will learn about the enormous expense invested in political advertising and the controversy that this engenders. The class will analyze several political ads and learn the difference between ads paid for by a candidate or his/her political party and an “issue advocacy ad.” In groups, students will then create an issue advocacy advertisement.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
Through discussion and observation, students will learn that the press rarely follows the policy process through to its conclusion. They will explore the various ways that both the press and politicians use each other for their own ends.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of teen film conventions and how they align with actual teen experiences by determining which aspects of their lives would fit teen genre conventions.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: The students will discuss their pre-conceptions about documentary film as a class. Then, the teacher will present the three aims of documentary film, supplementing these aims with clips from documentary films. The students will then watch a short documentary and identify how that documentary fulfills each of the three aims.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description: Students will create self-chosen lists of terminology for the media they are focusing on during the unit. Ideas for choosing and remembering terminology are included here.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will view the documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History and keep track of their emotional responses to the film (which will fluctuate frequently during this film, I can guarantee) and afterwards there will be a large-group discussion about aperture in documentary film.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will view the film It Happened One Night and write a response paper in which they identify how this film fits the screwball comedy genre in style, form, and content.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will view Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern to apply the principles learned in the lesson the day before about sound and music design. Afterwards, the class will have a large-group discussion about the film.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will view the documentary The Cruise. Afterwards, they will create an unsent postcard which helps them to process their thoughts and feelings about the film they just viewed.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: This is intended for the first day of a film class. It gives students an introduction into the governing course principles and the daily routines. The activities on this day are also designed to give the teacher an insight into the personalities and viewing habits of the students.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description:
Students will investigate the construction of male beauty in American media by examining magazines and other advertisements, and by discussing articles addressing the subject.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description:
By viewing music videos, advertisements, and websites, students will examine the construction of beauty in modern media.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description: By “annotating” a chosen medium (utilizing a handout included in the lesson plan), students will discover the unique attributes of that medium. The class will also develop three categories for discussing various media.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students are introduced to the concept of genre, discuss the economic and artistic purposes of genrew, and are asked to identify well known conventions of various genres.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Working in groups, students will read one of three articles about some of the people who made a significant contribution to the development of documentary film (Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov, and John Grierson). The students will then design a movie poster for each of these filmmakers' landmark films which point out why those films were important and show them to the rest of the class.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description: For the majority of Unit One and a portion of Unit Two, students will be writing one-page responses to all the feature films which they will view in class. Today's instruction provides models and explanations on how to write an adequate response paper and gives them an opportunity to practice.