Rationale
For me, this unit addresses two weaknesses that I currently feel I have as a teacher. First, it is developed for my College Preparatory (CP) Psychology course that I don’t believe I always give the same attention to as my Advanced Placement (AP) or Dual Enrollment courses. This brings it to the forefront of my instructional planning, which is very important. It also looks to developing the skills of reading a film in a meaningful way. In my Psychology courses, the content of Abnormal Psychology is usually taught at the end of the year. It’s a unit which students generally are pretty obsessed about. They think, “the stranger, the better” and some can personally connect to the information through their own experiences or those of a family member. This unit will be taught at the beginning of the year – which is a deviation from the norm. Usually it is taught at the end of the year but I think I would like to switch that order in this upcoming school year as it offers a unique twist on the topic as well as the teaching of a skill (viewing films and “reading” them). Through participation in seminar and its research, I have learned that viewing a film is not enough. The stories film tell are important enough for me to teach my students HOW to “read”. It is an important skill that will be used throughout the school year.
This unit’s focus will be on two psychological disorders, depression and schizophrenia and how by using films students will better understand abnormal behavior. These two extremes of abnormal behavior –depression, referred to as the common cold and schizophrenia, the so-called cancer of mental illness, are usually interesting to students but using visuals to better understand the content will enable them to see how the two disorders differ, to see their symptoms and causes and the stigmas often attached to them. Further, the fiction films that I will be using graphically show the impact of these psychological disorders on the individual, family, and society.
By using a combination of texts – written texts and films, I will be better able to capture the attention of my students that struggle with reading vast amounts of materials. Film examples will include The Hours (depression) and Clean, Shaven (schizophrenia). As I expect my students to interact with multiple texts, I began my journey in better understanding cinematic elements as well as the psychological states of depression and schizophrenia. I read a variety of books and reviewed the two films that I will use in this unit multiple times. My participation in the seminar has helped me to learn how to focus students on the “content” of these texts by – as the seminar leader, Brigitte Peucker, stated, “Analyzing film adaptations from these formal points of view in order to ask the following questions: How is the story told? Does the film tell the same story as the literary text? Or does it tell a different story and, if so, why and how? How does it color our emotions? What is its goal in doing so?”
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