In the Edutopia video, ‘Media Smarts: Kids Learn How to Navigate the Multimedia World’, George Lucas points out some home truths about the situation in the educational system:
They know music. They know the grammar of music. They know cinema, because they spend a huge amount of time in front of the television. So they know visual communication, they know the moving image. They intuitively know a lot of the rules, but nobody’s actually taught them. We go through school and learn the grammar of English – punctuation, capital letters, run-on sentences, what a verb is. But nobody teaches what screen direction is, what perspective is, what color is, what a diagonal line means ... Somehow, in the educational system, these need to be balanced out so that kids can communicate using all the forms of communication, especially in this day and age where the power of multimedia is coming to the children (Edutopia, 2006).
George Lucas makes a valid point about how we don’t teach students the language of film. Goble (2010) from the mindblue.com project suggests that many teachers use the “read the book, watch the movie” method of teaching, with mainly follow up discussion questions that do not create opportunities for students to really connect and critically think about the whole media aspect of the film. It is likened to using film as dessert instead of the main course.
Within the primary sector and my context, it would be fairly correct in making the generalisation that media literacy often takes a back seat to the main KLA’s. It is often tacked on somewhere in an integrated unit, perhaps its real meaning confused with ICTs and/or technology. A movie, video, dvd or film is often used at the last week of a term, on a rainy day, as a reward, and of course just like the teachers above it is shown so as to compare it to a book and so the print literacy.
For my own future practice not only as a classroom teacher but as a teacher librarian in a primary school context I see a real need to move away from this focus on the traditional grammar of print literacy to teaching students the grammar of their saturated media world outside of school, the grammar of visual literacy, the authentic reality of the media and the popular culture that it encompasses. Film possesses all the essential elements to get students talking in and thinking through the language that film makers use to create the products that are targeted to their demographics.
Like George Lucas I see the explicit teaching of the terminology of film as critical. Teaching the basic grammar of aspects like the ‘shot’ – long shot, mid shot or close up, or the ‘camera angle’ – low, high, distorted or crane, will give students not only a language to talk about the visual world, but might make them take more notice of the moving image instead of it just washing over them. And it can be as simple as using a digital camera and taking some photos, or using a selection from Flickr.
The beauty of teaching these skills can be as simple as using one photograph, and even the youngest students can learn these concepts. In Blueprint: The moving image for Teaching and Learning in Grades PreK-12 by the New York City Department of Education, there are some great ideas for developing literacy in the moving image. A simple idea for a 2nd grade lesson for making moving images is for students to create three sequential drawings that tell a simple visual story. The students act out the scene, photograph it, and explore how a series of photographs tells the story. In this hands-on activity they will learn about the basic elements and tools to tell a story /make a film, e.g. camera, lighting, colour, sound, movement, microphone, computer.
Goble (2010) suggests using short films or clips for repeated viewing to peel the layers off to show a certain technique or hidden meaning, very much like re-reading a print text for understanding or deconstruction. Youtube holds a veritable gold mine of movies, from trailers to full length productions conveniently broken into parts. The accessibility problem at school can be solved by downloading the particular resource that you need to use, but of course always checking with copyright.
One final idea I intend to utilize is using movie posters. Anytime I visit the video shop, they are practically giving them away and I’d never realized their potential until I came across this lesson idea from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pulishing Company – Analysing the media: movie posters.
You see them everywhere. Movie posters are prominently displayed on billboards, in the lobby of your local movie theater, in magazines, on the Internet, and even on the sides of buses. But how often do you stop and think about the effects movie posters have on you?
Questions to Consider:
- Is the movie title prominently featured? Is the text easy to read?
- Are the main actors shown? If so, which ones? What do their appearances and expressions convey about the movie?
- What is the design of the movie poster? Does it accurately reflect the mood and tone of the film?
- What other images are included? What do you notice about the framing of the images?
- What text is shown on the poster? Is there a catchy slogan? If so, what does it tell you about the movie's story?
- Is there any other important information included on the poster?
- Why do/don't you think this movie poster is persuasive?
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2008)
Ultimately, as suggested by Fortuna (2010) for an explicit instruction of the grammar of film to be most effective, it is necessary for educators to take a step back, relinquish the controls and allow students the freedom to compose their own films. “The act of creating original media forces students to lift the hood, so to speak, and see media’s intricate workings that conspire to do one thing above all others: make the final media product appear smooth, effortless, and natural” (Ohler, 2009). My goal for the immediate future is to teach students the grammar of film that will give them a language that empowers them to critically discuss the discourses that are part of their everyday lives.
References
Edutopia. (2005). Media smarts: kids learn how to navigate the multimedia world. Retrieved September 22, 2010, from http://www.edutopia.org/media-literacy-skills-video
Fortuna, C. (2010). Lights! Camera! Action!: A grammar of film for media literacy. Film in Education 38(4). Retrieved September 23, 2010, from Proquest Database.
Goble, R. (2010). Developing a mindful practice around moving images in the K-12 classroom. Film in Education 38(4). Retrieved September 23, 2010, from Proquest Database.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. (2008). Analying media: movie posters. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from
New York Department of Eduction. (n.d.). Blueprint: The moving image for teaching and learning in grades PreK-12. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from
Ohler, J. (2009). Orchestrating the media collage. Educational Leadership 66(6). Retrieved September 23, 2010, from Professional Development Collection Database.
Hi Bluke, I found your blog entry about “The grammar of film”, very interesting and can understand how learning to speak the language of film could be useful to students. It was refreshing to read your perception on it. This brings to mind the concept of creating a connection between this "language of film" to a literature program which supports the curriculum needs of the school and is in harmony with fostering an environment which encourages an empowering love of reading. Have you thought about a pedagogical approach resulting in the combination of reading fiction with an understanding of the “grammar of film”? For example the first part of the unit could be for a student to choose a fiction book of interest to them and to read the book.
ReplyDeleteThis could be followed by lessons where you could use a lot of examples of young adult books being made into films and examine these films in the light of the issues you have discussed. Then another lesson could be to teach students to create their own book trailers or short films depicting their interpretation of novels they have read, putting into practice the film grammar skills they have absorbed from the previous lesson. This would have the result of a student feeling empowered by reading a book they love and then translating this reaction into the visual and active concept of film making.
Fran