Appendix on Implementing District Standards (Virginia Standards of Learning)
10.2 The student will examine, analyze, and produce media messages.
a) Create media messages for diverse audiences.
d) Analyze the impact of selected media formats on meaning.
Emphasizing that not only is the teacher their audience, students will share with classmates, and be encouraged to share with family and friends. Analyzing and discussing the mentor text films will lead to discussions about student writing and films.
10.4 The student will read, comprehend, and analyze literary texts of different cultures and eras.
b) Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
c) Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
d) Analyze universal themes prevalent in the literature of different cultures.
f) Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning, including character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
g) Interpret how themes are connected within and across texts.
h) Explain the influence of historical context on the form, style, and point of view of a literary text(s).
k) Compare and contrast how literary devices convey a message and elicit a reader’s emotions.
Themes from the 2 international films will be compared with themes in the United States films. Students will be encouraged to think about how literary techniques add up to create theme in the mentor texts and the student work. Interpretation of cultural and social function will be key point of discussion after viewing each film, as well as a discussion point for the students’ purposes in making their films. Literary and film techniques will be analyzed through their application in student writing, emphasized through discussion and scaffolding.
10.6 The student will write in a variety of forms to include persuasive, reflective, interpretive, and analytic, with an emphasis on persuasion and analysis.
a) Engage in writing as a recursive process.
b) Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
c) Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
e) Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
f) Compose a thesis statement for persuasive writing that advocates a position.
i) Show relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence and include a conclusion that follows logically from the information presented.
j) Blend multiple forms of writing, including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.
Theme will be connected to making a thesis statement, loosely in the case of a fictional student film. Narrative will be common to all stories told, blended with the other forms. Structure will be emphasized in the development of students’ film ideas. Students will be asked to identify their audience and purpose early in the process. Claims, reasons, and evidence will be introduced in the context of the documentaries.
Annotated Bibliography
Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
This book provides a clearer purpose for student writing and shows how documentary has changed along with historical contexts.
Batchelor, Katherine E., and April King. “Freshmen and Five Hundred Words.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58, no. 2 (2014): 111–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.324.
That these teachers completed the unit in two weeks reminds us of the limitations of time for the present unit. Very significant was students’ various responses to the writing challenge.
Bedard, Carol, and Charles Fuhrken. “‘Everybody Wants Somebody to Hear Their Story’: High School Students Writing Screenplays.” The English Journal 100, no. 1 (September 2010): 47–52.
Having actual screenplays that students read was important in this article. Giving structure and time are also important supports to be remembered.
Jankovic, Colleen. “ FEELING CINEMA: Affect in Film/Composition Pedagogy.” Transformations; University Park 22, no. 2 (2011): 86–103.
Most significantly, this article reinforces the notion of timing for emotional reaction in both watching films and writing in response.
Krevolin, Richard W. Screenwriting from the Soul. Renaissance, 1999.
Written in the style of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, this book shows not only the frustrations of trying to write something complicated, but also the cultural aspect of storytelling.
Perkins-Hazuka, Christine, Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman. Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short-Short Stories. New York: Persea Books, 2011.
The more literary of the two flash fiction books, this collection features famous authors writing stories with children as protagonists.
Rabin, Lisa M. “The Social Uses of Classroom Cinema.” The Velvet Light Trap 72 (2013): 58–71. https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt7206.
This article gives not only the benefits but the struggle inherent in getting students to appreciate film. Notably, students criticized some of the films they saw.
Rogin-Roper, Leah, Stacy Walsh, and Dustin Dill. Fast Forward Presents, Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse. Denver, Colo.?: FF>> Press, 2012.
Typically shorter and less formal, these stories show the range of the flash fiction genre.
Ruecker, Todd Christopher. Transiciones: Pathways of Latinas and Latinos Writing in High School and College. Utah State University, 2015.
This book may be most important for implementing this unit in how much the college bound students differed in skills, cultural capital, personality, and their interest and reasons to motivate as writers. The author was also a great benefit to the students as they progressed through high school and college.
Tomasulo, Frank P. “Teaching Creativity: A Practical Guide for Training Filmmakers, Screenwriters, and Cinema Studies Students.” Journal of Film and Video 71, no. 1 (2019): 51–62. https://doi.org/10.5406/jfilmvideo.71.1.0051.
Tomasulo reminds us of the unconscious and conscious processes of artistic creation. Made relevant to this unit, students will be asked to find out the hidden process of their own creativity
1 Carol Bedard and Charles Fuhrken, “Everybody Wants Somebody to Hear Their Story.”
2 Katherine E Batchelor, and April King, “Freshmen and Five Hundred Words.”
3 Lisa M. Rabin, “The Social Uses of Classroom Cinema.”
4 Ibid.
5 Frank P. Tomasulo, “Teaching Creativity: A Practical Guide for Training Filmmakers, Screenwriters, and Cinema Studies Students.”
6 Ibid.
7 Colleen Jankovic, “ FEELING CINEMA: Affect in Film/Composition Pedagogy.”
8 Ibid
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Erik.Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film.
12 Frank P. Tomasulo, “Teaching Creativity: A Practical Guide for Training Filmmakers, Screenwriters, and Cinema Studies Students.”
13 Barnouw’s Documentary Genres (developed chronologically around international cinema):
Prophet, Explorer, Reporter, Painter, Advocate, Bugler, Prosecutor, Poet, Chronicler, Promoter,
Observer, Catalyst, Guerrilla
14 College Level Writing Assignments from Ruecker’s Transciones: Memo about a community organization, Annotated Bibliography, Rhetorical Analysis (ethos, pathos, logos), Community problem report, History response essays, Research papers, Response postings, Book reviews, Genre analysis, Literature review, Applications, Learning journals, 5-6 minute documentary, Opinion piece, Advocacy Website, Essay exams, Research question, abstract, annotations, Compare/contrast essay, Definition essay, Article summary, 6-7 page autobiographical analysis, Paragraph assessment, Discourse community map
15 Todd Christopher Ruecker, Transiciones: Pathways of Latinas and Latinos Writing in High School and College.
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