Using Film in the Classroom/How to Read a Film

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 15.04.07

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Rationale
  3. Overarching Understandings and Questions to Keep in Mind for the Development of the Unit
  4. Demographics
  5. Content: Hester Street
  6. Teaching Strategies
  7. Classroom Activities
  8. Bibliography/Teacher and Student Resources
  9. Common Core State Standards for Pennsylvania
  10. Notes

Immigration and the Narrative Voice: Analysis of Image and Sound in Film and Its Connection to the Immigrants' Stories

Kathleen Radebaugh

Published September 2015

Tools for this Unit:

Bibliography/Teacher and Student Resources

Bernstein, Leonard, and Arthur Laurents. West Side Story: A Musical. New York:

Random House, 1958.

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 6th ed. New York:

McGraw Hill, 2001.

This is a very informative text for teachers who want to build their background knowledge on film and how to view film. It will also help teachers build vocabulary for film for the students.

Cohen, Sarah Blacher. From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage

and Screen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.

This is an analytical piece for teachers and students. The teacher can pull excerpts that match the essential questions of the course.

Fleegler, R. (2013). Ellis Island nation: Immigration policy and American identity in the

twentieth century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Fleegler reviews the impact the 20th century had on immigration reform and how different views were developed in terms of new immigrants coming to America. Depending on the reading level of your students, excerpts from this book are accessible for students on a seventh-to-eighth grade reading level.

Gates, H. (n.d.). Finding your roots: The official companion to the PBS series.

This is a very popular television series on PBS. The book is about ancestral heritage and why it matters to understand your ancestral roots. This is a very accessible source for students in middle school and there are many stories about how different people from different backgrounds assimilated into America. Some of my favorite accounts are from daughters and sons of immigrants. The children who are first generation American reflect on how they lived in both worlds, especially when it came to religion and marriage.

Hester Street. Denmark: Midwest Films, 1975

Korrol, Virginia Sanchez. The Story of the U.S. Puerto Ricans-The Great Migration at

Midcentury. Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, 2010.

Lehman, Ernest, and Jerome Robbins. West Side Story: Screenplay. Place of Publication

Not Identified: MGM Home Entertainment, 2003.

Monaco, James. How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, and Multimedia :

Language, History, Theory. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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