Strategies
The Organizer: A Foldable
I want my students to be able to identify and evaluate the use of the elements of literature and of film through the literary works and films that they encounter. I never want my students to miss out on the joys and enrichment of the human condition that only literature and film can provide because of district time and pacing constraints. Although it is very important to know and understand how the literary elements drive a work of literature or film, it is even more important that they be able to delve deeper and take away more from the artistry because of them. They have had experience with elements in the past, however, I want to make sure that they have a solid foundation with which to analyze the upcoming story and films. Some of the elements will be mentioned as we go along but not focused on. For this unit, I want my students to be able to focus in on and understand the elements of imagery, mood, tone, point of view, symbol, and most importantly suspense. I will show them a power point and have them create a foldable organizer on which to write the terms and definitions from the slideshow. A foldable is a very effective and student friendly tool for students to create an interactive notes organizer that they fold, cut and glue using paper. They can easily be attached to a pocket in a notebook and are a much more useful tool for studying terms and concepts than the traditional note taking strategies. The foldable we design will have space available later for the formal elements of film to be added. This structure of ours will have six tabs for the literary elements and six for the formal elements. I always want my students to be actively engaged, even in this preparatory stage, in order to build enthusiasm for the unit early on.
Elegy for Poe
I will show my students an older but effective biography of Edgar Allan Poe by A and E in order for my students to truly capture the essence of Poe as a man; his life is inextricably connected to his works and knowledge of the events that shaped him as a person enhances the analysis of any of his works, especially in relation to his use of the suspense genre. Unfortunately, much of Poe’s life is mired in myth, making him out to be little more than a caricature one might find in a haunted house. After viewing the film, I want my students to synthesize the information from the biographical film into a portrait of Poe through an elegy. An elegy is a reflective poetic form of remembrance and remorse for someone or something that has been used for centuries. Elegies have a distinct tone of remorse and praise highly or simply lament the passing of someone or something. I want my students to capture the important life moments of Poe using a more concise way than with an essay type of writing. I want them to not only synthesize the information from the film but also to have more practice with the writing of poetry. After this unit of study, we will tackle several of Poe’s poems and this will connect nicely.
Analysis of The Tell Tale Heart: Storyboard
Our first analysis will be of Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart. In my classroom we read literary works with dual purposes in mind. First, literature is to be enjoyed and experienced, a positive adventure into the unknown. Our first reading we will read along with the Poe’s narrator, jumping with fright and finding the joy in the tenseness and suspense, the words and imagery. It is during this reading that I can playfully roll my eyeball marble onto their desk or tap them on the back with a gelatinous human heart, both easy to find at the post-Halloween clearance sale. After we have read it for the first time together, we will discuss the literary elements that were added to our foldables. I will then give them a “Poe-ganizer” on which they can track the narrative and jot down notes on each of the six elements as they reread the story with their collaborative group. Together, my students are liable to come up with many more examples of suspense, mood, etc. than they would on their own.
Hitchcock, the director and creative genius behind the film we will soon enjoy and analyze, is well known for drawing his own very detailed storyboards prior to each movie that he made. Storyboards for films are a series of comic strip-like sketches of the shots in each scene. They will often include notation about costume, lighting, camera work, sound and motion. A storyboard helps give the cinematographers and special effects people a preliminary idea of what the finished film will look like, but as with Hitchcock, can be used by a director to control every detail. There are some great websites where students can create a storyboards using technology in the classroom. In my case, our technology is limited and often requires a much longer time to complete due to the constraints and limitations placed upon teachers. Therefore, I will have my students create their own with colored pencils, markers and paper and have them add it to their interactive notebook. Before they begin their storyboard, I want them to go back to the story and think about each of the elements of film we have just gone over. They will now act as a film director and create a storyboard for a film version of The Tell Tale Heart, one that includes at least six comic frames, each with visual and caption. They must include how their filmed version of the story would build suspense with cinematography, sound, editing, mise-en-scene, and pacing. After we have shared our storyboards, I will show them Scott Mansfield’s twenty-five minute long film adaptation of The Tell Tale Heart. We will discuss how this adaptation used those formal elements and how their version held up against it.
Analysis of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train: Movie Review
I will then have my students take out their foldables and add the formal elements of film from the power point to their organizer. I want them to be able to not only define the terms, but to play with them a while as these are brand new terms and concepts for them. How well did they use the formal elements in their storyboard? As a class we will play a game of Fact or Fiction in which collaborative teams play against each other for points, trying to decide if the statements I throw out at them about the literary elements and the formal elements of film are true or not true, based on the information they have on their foldables. This fun and energizing competition ensures that every student has heard and seen all of the elements and are ready to identify them in a film. It also serves as a team building exercise for my collaborative classroom.
Now that my students have experience using the elements of literature and have played filmmaker with a storyboard adaptation, it is time to meet Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. I will show the students a brief televised interview with Hitchcock in order for them to get a sense of the man and his creative, genius and intriguing eccentricities. We will then turn our attention to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. We will watch the film in its entirety, only stopping at pivotal scenes and making sure that everyone is jotting down briefs notes for each column of their “Terror-izer” graphic organizer. This graphic organizer will have a column for each of the formal elements of film and allow them to quickly jot their ideas in the columns, hopefully not taking them away from the movie itself. They will then be able to use this during our discussions.
After we have discussed and analyzed the movie for its unique film qualities, I want the students to now be able to write about the film, putting onto paper their thoughts and analysis will help them to synthesize the elements and creation of suspense in film. The students will write a Movie Review for the other students. Their review will be five well-crafted paragraphs that analyze the film using a sampling of the elements, ( editing, sound, motion, etc.) as well as their opinion on whether it was a good example of suspense or not.
Filmmaking
A final activity to further help my students synthesize the barrage of information and experiences they have had thus far will be a culminating activity that will allow my students to explore the art of filmmaking. It is important that my students be able to apply what they have learned in a personal way. I want them to collaborate with their group to make an original suspense movie short that showcases what they have gleaned from the previous activities. I will have them use the Imovie format and create an original storyboard with their group. My students will no doubt enjoy creating their own version of a Hitchcock movie, replete with props, costuming, and cinematography. I want to keep the student made films relatively brief so that we may view and evaluate everyone’s films. I want my students to be able to track the formal elements used in each of the film shorts, as well as review the short for enjoyment and the qualities of suspense.
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