Matt Knutson
CI 5472
May 3, 2009
CI 5472 Final Project
Option #1 – Teaching Unit Related to Film
Introduction and Purpose
An essential part of the English curriculum is The Canon, the contested running list of history's greatest works of literature. It is a very slow-moving thing and far from dynamic, but it is absolutely necessary for cultural literacy. The Canon is where Shakespeare lives and breathes, and most high school students would never encounter him if he didn't have a place there. Likewise, the Film Canon feeds so much of popular culture. Rare is the evening of television viewing that passes without a single Star Wars reference. Whether parodied, alluded to, or quoted, the Film Canon informs the tastes of any connoisseur of popular media.
This paper describes a course dedicated to the study of popular films of past and present, striving to construct the Film Canon in an accessible and informative way for high school students. The purpose and primary focus of the course is cultural literacy, but other focuses include cinematographic techniques, the power of allusion, and the film review process.
I've budgeted time for 23 movies, or roughly two movies for every three weeks (23/36 is close to 24/36, or 2/3). This is certainly subject to change, since any teacher knows that students may take significantly more or less time than originally planned.
CI 5472
May 3, 2009
CI 5472 Final Project
Option #1 – Teaching Unit Related to Film
Introduction and Purpose
An essential part of the English curriculum is The Canon, the contested running list of history's greatest works of literature. It is a very slow-moving thing and far from dynamic, but it is absolutely necessary for cultural literacy. The Canon is where Shakespeare lives and breathes, and most high school students would never encounter him if he didn't have a place there. Likewise, the Film Canon feeds so much of popular culture. Rare is the evening of television viewing that passes without a single Star Wars reference. Whether parodied, alluded to, or quoted, the Film Canon informs the tastes of any connoisseur of popular media.
This paper describes a course dedicated to the study of popular films of past and present, striving to construct the Film Canon in an accessible and informative way for high school students. The purpose and primary focus of the course is cultural literacy, but other focuses include cinematographic techniques, the power of allusion, and the film review process.
I've budgeted time for 23 movies, or roughly two movies for every three weeks (23/36 is close to 24/36, or 2/3). This is certainly subject to change, since any teacher knows that students may take significantly more or less time than originally planned.
Unit Overview
Unit one – Introduction: media and the power of allusion – 0 movies
Unit two – Sci Fi and Fantasy – 6 movies
Star Wars Trilogy (mention of Episodes I-III), Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, ET
Unit three – the monster movie – 3 movies
Frankenstein, Dracula, Godzilla
Unit four – drama and the classics – 4 movies
Brokeback Mountain, Casablanca, the Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind
** BREAK ** – unit four may straddle Winter Break, since I would rather not force too many movies into the first half of the course.
Unit five – action and suspense – 4 movies
Vertigo, Jaws, First Blood (aka Rambo 1), Die Hard
Unit Six – the documentary – 3 movies
Supersize Me, Sicko, Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who
Unit Seven - The film parody – 3 movies
Space Balls, This is Spinal Tap, UHF
Assessment
Formative assessment
Students will be required to write five papers between one and a half and two pages each semester, each one pertaining to a specific film. The paper will review that film, paying attention to the aspects listed in the rubric below:
Sample rubric
Emotional Response – 5 points for discussion of how the film made the student feel, focusing on key character dilemmas and plot points.
Quality of Acting – 5 points for analysis of at least two actors. Analysis should focus on emotional range, voice inflection, and believability.
Location Choice, Filming Techniques, and Special Eeffects – 5 points for students who discuss any and all of these pieces and the effect of each one on the film's impact.
Five Star Ranking – 5 points for rating the film on a scale of one to five stars, plus a defense of why the rating was chosen.
Total: 20 points
Summative assessment
There will be two tests each semester: one at the midterm and one at the end of the semester. The tests will ask multiple choice questions linking key quotes to the movies from which they came; intertextuality from movie to movie, comparing one to another on specific dimensions; a designated viewing portion of the test in which the instructor shows important scenes from the movies and students identify the movie and the significance of the scene; and viewing portions in which media from outside of the course reference a movie in the curriculum and students identify the referenced movie.
The purpose of the course is to build students' cultural literacies. The test items, therefore, are geared towards assessing the extent to which students can apply knowledge from the course to other media. It is not hard to find a clip from The Office, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, or Scrubs, to name a few television shows that make references to films in the course. On top of that, many online texts make constant reference to key films, Star Wars perhaps being the greatest perpetrator. Such texts will be key in assessment, determining whether students can synthesize between the allusion and the original.
Unit one – Introduction: media and the power of allusion – 0 movies
Unit two – Sci Fi and Fantasy – 6 movies
Star Wars Trilogy (mention of Episodes I-III), Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, ET
Unit three – the monster movie – 3 movies
Frankenstein, Dracula, Godzilla
Unit four – drama and the classics – 4 movies
Brokeback Mountain, Casablanca, the Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind
** BREAK ** – unit four may straddle Winter Break, since I would rather not force too many movies into the first half of the course.
Unit five – action and suspense – 4 movies
Vertigo, Jaws, First Blood (aka Rambo 1), Die Hard
Unit Six – the documentary – 3 movies
Supersize Me, Sicko, Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who
Unit Seven - The film parody – 3 movies
Space Balls, This is Spinal Tap, UHF
Assessment
Formative assessment
Students will be required to write five papers between one and a half and two pages each semester, each one pertaining to a specific film. The paper will review that film, paying attention to the aspects listed in the rubric below:
Sample rubric
Emotional Response – 5 points for discussion of how the film made the student feel, focusing on key character dilemmas and plot points.
Quality of Acting – 5 points for analysis of at least two actors. Analysis should focus on emotional range, voice inflection, and believability.
Location Choice, Filming Techniques, and Special Eeffects – 5 points for students who discuss any and all of these pieces and the effect of each one on the film's impact.
Five Star Ranking – 5 points for rating the film on a scale of one to five stars, plus a defense of why the rating was chosen.
Total: 20 points
Summative assessment
There will be two tests each semester: one at the midterm and one at the end of the semester. The tests will ask multiple choice questions linking key quotes to the movies from which they came; intertextuality from movie to movie, comparing one to another on specific dimensions; a designated viewing portion of the test in which the instructor shows important scenes from the movies and students identify the movie and the significance of the scene; and viewing portions in which media from outside of the course reference a movie in the curriculum and students identify the referenced movie.
The purpose of the course is to build students' cultural literacies. The test items, therefore, are geared towards assessing the extent to which students can apply knowledge from the course to other media. It is not hard to find a clip from The Office, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, or Scrubs, to name a few television shows that make references to films in the course. On top of that, many online texts make constant reference to key films, Star Wars perhaps being the greatest perpetrator. Such texts will be key in assessment, determining whether students can synthesize between the allusion and the original.
Supplemental Texts
James Rolfe
The mind behind Cinemassacre.com and the web-based serial "The Angry Videogame Nerd," Rolfe provides many movies online that link all sorts of film genres. Specifically:
http://www.cinemassacre.com/new/?p=453 – The "Godzillathon," an in-depth look at each Godzilla movie. One of these will suffice.
http://www.cinemassacre.com/new/?p=936 – More than a review of the Star Wars films, this video tracks many references to the established Canon of films that many viewers (including me) would probably miss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ho78HArjFI&feature=channel_page – The sixth part of Rolfe's "Monster Madness," a 31-part series that Rolfe did one October, culminating in Halloween. This one is specific to Frankenstein, though others include every major monster movie in film history, including Dracula, the Wolf Man, and several others..
Blue Oyster Cult
"Godzilla" – This song is just for fun, a short text to play in class that references the film of its namesake.
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
"Thriller" – Here is a classic reference to the monster movie / horror genre. Besides the acclaimed music, the dance sequences and mini-plot in the music video bring out the best of the genre without necessarily parodying it.
Star Trek
Star Trek
The episode in which an alien race can only speak in allusions – the episode's name is "Darmok." In The Next Generation, the Enterprise makes contact with a race of beings whose language relies entirely on references to past events such as "when the walls fell." This is important in the Star Trek saga because it circumvents the ever-handy universal translator. Instead of a cohesive language with a one-to-one correspondence of word to meaning, the language that the crew of the Enterprise is confronted with presents a somewhat mystic task in meaning-making. The purpose here is to exemplify the extent to which context gives meaning to words that would otherwise appear arbitrary in sequence. Through allusion, a speaker can communicate volumes in a single utterance, as long as the listener is familiar with the reference.
A Closer Look at Specific Units
Unit Two
We start with Science Fiction and Fantasy because I can think of no movie more heavily referenced than the original Star Wars trilogy. Showing all six films would certainly be pushing my luck, but episodes IV-VI would be more than enough to verse students in the Star Wars universe. My concern is that showing all three consecutively might be a little too much for the students that don't care for the series, so I would be willing to space them out and insert other movies in the genre between each episode. It might end up being a weed-out for students who don't take the class seriously and don't have the patience for three whole movies in one niche, but it also might give a false sense of security for students who love that genre and no other.
Unit Four
This may be the unit that gets the most stress in other film appreciation classes. It seems to me that only a few "classic" movies get referenced significantly in popular culture, and those are the ones I've included. "Classic" movies are more likely to have exerted an influence on cinematography than explicit allusions; Citizen Kane was revolutionary for its techniques, but outside of the word "rosebud," it doesn't really get a lot of attention in the popular sphere. Of course, that's just my perspective.
It may be safe to say that the course does not spend too much time on drama, which is especially strange for me because I find drama to be the most poignant genre of film. It isn't always the most high-interest material, though, and I may want to change the order around to stagger the "classic" and drama movies a little more. If students are open to most genres of film, however, they shouldn't have too much of a problem choking this section down.
Unit Six
This genre of films is one of the more unique in my mind. It doesn't bother with plot or characters, yet compassion for the film's interviewees is essential, and the documentary must be presented in such a way that the events are strung along in such a way that makes sense. I wasn't sure where to put it, though it has its place, so I put it towards the end.
I think one important distinction one should draw is the unbiased versus the biased documentary. The latter may sound like a contradiction, but the way I would have students approach it is the same as for any news source: there is straight reporting, and there is opinion/editorial, and the latter is still news. Bias is an important topic to consider in any text, and it would be a focus during the documentary unit.
Unit Seven
This may be the most important unit of the course. These movies are extended allusions to movies we have already covered: Space Balls for Star Wars, Spinal Tap for the Who, and UHF for a parody of nearly everything in popular media, especially in the 80's. Since reference is the cornerstone of the course, these movies exemplify the referential quality of cinema. I've also picked these three because they are, in turn, referenced by other media. I can't count how many times someone has told me that "this _____ goes up to eleven."
Since these movies model the process of reference, they are a natural ending point for the course. One consequence is that I can show clips from the parody movies during the final and ask 1) what the movie is and 2) which movie it is parodying. They are also rather lighthearted and should possibly ease some of the students' tensions as the school year draws to a close.
Additional Viewings and Movies
It may be useful for students to have second chances to view films they miss in class. Since I can't rent films to students and expect the films back 100% of the time in perfect condition, it would be good for students if I scheduled out-of-school time, likely on the weekends, to show films in their entireties. I could open up the occasion to students outside of the film class if I could get an auditorium's seating availability and give preferential treatment to my students in terms of seats.
One field trip that would make a lot of sense would be to a movie theatre to apply our knowledge of film to a truly contemporary film. That way, students could see the film from beginning to end, and the whole trip would be fairly inexpensive as far as field trips go.
Textual Selection
Certainly, the texts selected here betray some of my tastes in movies. I have a very low tolerance for slasher/horror movies. Some people really don't have a problem seeing blood and gore, and those people might also be excellent at taking themselves out of the protagonists' shoes, but I am good at neither of those things, so horror movies are very taxing for me. I will go as far as suspense with Vertigo, natural disaster with Jaws, and monster movie with Frankenstein et al, but I just can't subject myself to hours of horror, at least not in the foreseeable future.
It may be a false assumption, but it is nonetheless my assumption that some of my students may likely have a low tolerance, too, and if they feel as repulsed by horror movies as I, then I might do well to focus my units elsewhere. I certainly don't mean to censor my students from anything, but this may fall in the grey area between "selection" and "censorship."
The other bias that may be clear through my selection of films is a somewhat liberal slant. With Sicko, Brokeback Mountain, and possibly Supersize Me, I may accidentally communicate a lefty bias. (This is, of course, after I removed An Unfortunate Truth from the list.) I tried hard to think of contemporary movies that might show the world from a conservative perspective, but I didn't come up with much outside of Jesus Camp, which isn't really conservative anyway. And no, I'm not considering Moral Kombat.
A Closer Look at Specific Units
Unit Two
We start with Science Fiction and Fantasy because I can think of no movie more heavily referenced than the original Star Wars trilogy. Showing all six films would certainly be pushing my luck, but episodes IV-VI would be more than enough to verse students in the Star Wars universe. My concern is that showing all three consecutively might be a little too much for the students that don't care for the series, so I would be willing to space them out and insert other movies in the genre between each episode. It might end up being a weed-out for students who don't take the class seriously and don't have the patience for three whole movies in one niche, but it also might give a false sense of security for students who love that genre and no other.
Unit Four
This may be the unit that gets the most stress in other film appreciation classes. It seems to me that only a few "classic" movies get referenced significantly in popular culture, and those are the ones I've included. "Classic" movies are more likely to have exerted an influence on cinematography than explicit allusions; Citizen Kane was revolutionary for its techniques, but outside of the word "rosebud," it doesn't really get a lot of attention in the popular sphere. Of course, that's just my perspective.
It may be safe to say that the course does not spend too much time on drama, which is especially strange for me because I find drama to be the most poignant genre of film. It isn't always the most high-interest material, though, and I may want to change the order around to stagger the "classic" and drama movies a little more. If students are open to most genres of film, however, they shouldn't have too much of a problem choking this section down.
Unit Six
This genre of films is one of the more unique in my mind. It doesn't bother with plot or characters, yet compassion for the film's interviewees is essential, and the documentary must be presented in such a way that the events are strung along in such a way that makes sense. I wasn't sure where to put it, though it has its place, so I put it towards the end.
I think one important distinction one should draw is the unbiased versus the biased documentary. The latter may sound like a contradiction, but the way I would have students approach it is the same as for any news source: there is straight reporting, and there is opinion/editorial, and the latter is still news. Bias is an important topic to consider in any text, and it would be a focus during the documentary unit.
Unit Seven
This may be the most important unit of the course. These movies are extended allusions to movies we have already covered: Space Balls for Star Wars, Spinal Tap for the Who, and UHF for a parody of nearly everything in popular media, especially in the 80's. Since reference is the cornerstone of the course, these movies exemplify the referential quality of cinema. I've also picked these three because they are, in turn, referenced by other media. I can't count how many times someone has told me that "this _____ goes up to eleven."
Since these movies model the process of reference, they are a natural ending point for the course. One consequence is that I can show clips from the parody movies during the final and ask 1) what the movie is and 2) which movie it is parodying. They are also rather lighthearted and should possibly ease some of the students' tensions as the school year draws to a close.
Additional Viewings and Movies
It may be useful for students to have second chances to view films they miss in class. Since I can't rent films to students and expect the films back 100% of the time in perfect condition, it would be good for students if I scheduled out-of-school time, likely on the weekends, to show films in their entireties. I could open up the occasion to students outside of the film class if I could get an auditorium's seating availability and give preferential treatment to my students in terms of seats.
One field trip that would make a lot of sense would be to a movie theatre to apply our knowledge of film to a truly contemporary film. That way, students could see the film from beginning to end, and the whole trip would be fairly inexpensive as far as field trips go.
Textual Selection
Certainly, the texts selected here betray some of my tastes in movies. I have a very low tolerance for slasher/horror movies. Some people really don't have a problem seeing blood and gore, and those people might also be excellent at taking themselves out of the protagonists' shoes, but I am good at neither of those things, so horror movies are very taxing for me. I will go as far as suspense with Vertigo, natural disaster with Jaws, and monster movie with Frankenstein et al, but I just can't subject myself to hours of horror, at least not in the foreseeable future.
It may be a false assumption, but it is nonetheless my assumption that some of my students may likely have a low tolerance, too, and if they feel as repulsed by horror movies as I, then I might do well to focus my units elsewhere. I certainly don't mean to censor my students from anything, but this may fall in the grey area between "selection" and "censorship."
The other bias that may be clear through my selection of films is a somewhat liberal slant. With Sicko, Brokeback Mountain, and possibly Supersize Me, I may accidentally communicate a lefty bias. (This is, of course, after I removed An Unfortunate Truth from the list.) I tried hard to think of contemporary movies that might show the world from a conservative perspective, but I didn't come up with much outside of Jesus Camp, which isn't really conservative anyway. And no, I'm not considering Moral Kombat.
Matt Knutson, 2009
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