Movies As Literature Student Workbook

Love this workbook. You can do the class without it but it makes life simpler. This is my favorite High School class I've taught so far!

I believe this curriculum is a good resource for students who have dyslexia. 3 out of my 4 children have been diagnosed with this brain difference. I have used this curriculum with not only my own children, but also as a homeschool co-op class. By using a movie as the "text", students can engage in a different way than using a book as a "text". The authors do a pretty good job of literary analysis for each movie. Although some composition questions are not my favorite, I still give this curriculum 4 out of 5 stars.

Movies As Literature was extremely helpful in introducing my son to literary analysis We began using it when he was in the 6th grade At that time he was quite lacking in analytical skills and still very concrete in his thinking After using this curriculum to analyze a few movies in discussion and in writing his analytical skills vastly improved and now (4 years later) our friends have even said that he is one of the most analytical people they know! While a good deal of that improvement has been due to my coaching this curriculum was invaluable as an aid to me (and to him)The first half of the book is the student portion (as far as I can tell this is pretty much identical to the student workbook which was not being offered when we bought the curriculum) It contains details about each movie such as dates actors summaries literary devices studied for that movie etc Also included and most helpful are 20+ discussions questions for each movie ranging from the concrete (what happened) to the very subtle (why would) These provided questions are not the simple fill-in-the-blank type that other movie studies usually present Instead they are mostly thinking questions that prompt intelligent discussions to facilitate a deeper understanding of the literature being studied as well as the usage of literary devices in general At the end of each section (per movie) are several essay questions to choose from and some extension activities that are related to that unit's movie This is sometimes to read the book that the movie is based on to read another book by the same author to watch another movie which has similar or contrasting portrayals etc The last half of the book is the teacher portion which is the same discussion and essay questions over again but with fairly extensive paragraph-length answers This is extremely helpful since even the most analytically-minded of us cannot always anticipate what the author of the curriculum was getting at when she asked a particular question And if you are not especially analytical yourself this portion will be indispensable to you At the very end of the book is the literary terms glossary and testLittle to no teacher prep is necessary I do choose to preview each film before studying it with my son and usually take a few moments to read over the beginning information and questions beforehand Some folks might also like to look over the answers as well and maybe even follow along with the movie while doing so for a more thorough understanding before actually teaching the lesson To do this would obviously require more prep time These choices would depend on how naturally the teacher/parent can handle the analysis without help Thankfully the help is there if neededAlthough I never used this curriculum with more than one student at a time (which also means that I supplied most of the stimulus of the discussion to take the place of a larger group) I have used it with my son over a length of time in between other linguistics curricula and it has worked equally well for us whether he was 12 or 15 years old and we will continue to use it at least another year or two It could be used any time during the junior high or high school years so a co-op or family with several students of that age would be a great group for this studyThis is not the type of study that has multiple kinds of activities to do Students watch the movie at least twice discussing the second time through and then write a paper about some aspect of it This gives a great opportunity to teach or practice exposition as wellWhat I would regard as a prerequisite to this study is that students are at least acquainted with high quality literature at their own level (they read good books even if they don't analyze them right now) that they are ready for the content of the movie they are studying (the fact that you will be discussing it together should help greatly with this and provides opportunities for talking about worldviews and morals as well should you choose to do so) and that they have at least some introductory experience in writing exposition If you and your student don't generally discuss literature together (or even if you do ) it would be a good idea to brief the student on what to expect and what will be expected of him A good source for discussion of literature (a sort of pre-Movies as Literature perhaps) is Reading Strands although it is not necessary enough for me to label it a prerequisiteAlso since this study does not isolate the literary devices you will want your student to do that type of course sometime either before or after (or during) this study That is the author of this study does not isolate the study of irony for example in any unit Instead she studies a particular movie and talks about the irony of it if it is there along with any other elements of that movie Therefore you may want your student to do a curriculum that does isolate each element before moving on to the typical high school English Lit courses Literary Analysis by For Such a Time As This Ministries is perfect for this Again this could be done either before or after Movies as Literature We did not choose to study these movies in the order they are presented They are given in an order which reflects a progressive difficulty in analysis but this order does not really reflect developmental maturity or readiness of the student for the content of each movie Since we started when my son was young we chose lighter movies with "safer" themes first Some of the movies suggested we may never study at all (However several very good movies are suggested which we would never have discovered otherwise) These changes do not seem to interfere in any way with the benefits of the curriculumAnother advantage of studying this curriculum is that it can help get your family into a habit of discussing movies instead of just absorbing indiscriminately the values presented in them For this alone it is worth the price and there is so much more than that hereIf you have been wondering how you would manage teaching literary analysis to your student if you despair of your student ever being able to really think about the literature he reads or watches if you need good fodder for expository writing if you want to establish good discussion habits in your family or if you would just rather have someone else come up with excellent questions to discuss with your student about literature this curriculum will not disappoint you You can study it all the way through all at once or use it to fill in the summers or in between other curricula You can use it as I did because I knew that teaching my son literary analysis using novels which we would have to try to read in tandem and then discuss would be a disaster You can even use it to teach an aspiring director what makes movies what they are since this study also addresses that Movies as Literature does so much and is so versatile It is not all you will ever need to teach junior high and high school English but barring the fact that it is only 17 two-week studies (or one school year of literary material) it is very close