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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Lights, camera, action...music: Critiquing films using sight and sound

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=863

A lesson plan for Grade 11 English III

Provider: IRA/NCTE

About this resource

Appropriate grades
11
Subjects
arts (film), social studies (United States history), thinking skills (critical literacy, higher order thinking, visual literacy)
Provider
IRA/NCTE

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Students view a scene from Good Morning, Vietnam in which the visuals and the music contradict each other. Web resources provide information about lighting, color, sound, and camera angle, thus allowing students to evaluate the images produced by the film and predict what type of music should be used to express the message of those images. Students then synthesize information to create a film segment using the elements of cinematography.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 11 — English III

  • Goal 2: The learner will inform an audience by using a variety of media to research and explain insights into language and culture.
    • Objective 2.03: Respond to informational texts by:
      - using a variety of strategies for preparation, engagement, and reflection.
      - paraphrasing main ideas and supporting details present in texts.
      -explaining significant connections among the speaker's/author's purpose, tone, biases, and the message for the intended audience.
  • Goal 3: The learner will demonstrate increasing sophistication in defining issues and using argument effectively.
    • Objective 3.03: Use argumentation for:
      - interpreting researched information effectively.
      - establishing and defending a point of view.
      - addressing concerns of the opposition.
      - using logical strategies (e.g., deductive and inductive reasoning, syllogisms, analogies) and sophisticated techniques (e.g., rhetorical devices, parallelism, irony, concrete images).
      -developing a sense of completion.
  • Goal 4: The learner will critically analyze text to gain meaning, develop thematic connections, and synthesize ideas.
    • Objective 4.01: Interpret meaning for an audience by:
      - examining the functions and the effects of narrative strategies such as plot, conflict, suspense, point of view, characterization, and dialogue.
      - interpreting the effect of figures of speech (e.g., personification, oxymoron) and the effect of devices of sound (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia).
      - analyzing stylistic features such as word choice and links between sense and sound.
      - identifying ambiguity, contradiction, irony, parody, and satire.
      - demonstrating how literary works reflect the culture that shaped them.