Students will create an adaptation of a given source text.

This project is completed in three parts. To complete part one, students must view or listen to two documentaries outside of class and write a one-page analysis of how it fulfills or did not fulfill the three aims of documentary film. To complete part two, students will become a documentarian by completing one of four documentary film projects: keeping a daily journal for 24 days, making a photo documentary around a central theme, create an art project which examines one subject from three different perspectives, or create an audio documentary. To complete part three, students will write a one and a half page report of the things they learned about documentaries by completing this project.

Students will create a media representation of their lives with a particular emphasis on their culture.

Students imagine they are running for an important political office of some sort. Phyllis Knight, a fictitious documentary filmmaker, approaches the student and asks if she can make a documentary film about a day in that student's life. For the first part of the assignment, students must select a typical day in their life and record (in writing) all of the things a camera would see if it filmed them from sunup to sundown. After the students have completed this part of the assignment and handed it in, Phyllis informs them that someone broke into her editing studio and made a copy of all the footage that she had filmed about the student. She thinks it will be used to make a film that portrays the student as a bad person and which will then be shown to voters in order to discredit them. In order to apologize, she has agreed that she will take her footage and edit it to make the student look like a good person to be shown to voters. To complete this project, students must go through a series of steps to create two storyboards about a day in their life: one which portrays them as a good person and one which portrays them as a bad person. They must use the elements of film and the techniques of editing that have been discussed in class to accomplish this assignment.

Working in groups or individually, students will choose from a list of Hollywood directors and view three films by that director. Applying their knowledge about generic conventions, students will analyze the artistic style, narrative form, and thematic content of these three films and will write a final paper indicating what elements are indicative of that director's cinematic "signature." Students will have the option of giving an in-class presentation for extra credit.