Filmic Curation and Combination

Introduction

In talking with teachers, some uses of film are more prevalent than others, and some are more acceptable to administrators, teachers, and other stakeholders in education. Domke et al. (2018) noted the trend of using a film as filler in moments of last-minute lesson planning (e.g., impending grade due dates, cancelled field trips), as well as noting film as a place that educators go at the conclusion of reading a novel. Yet, these authors suggest “films need to be considered creative works in their own right, with their own purposes, creators, messages, and meanings, all of which are distinct and separate from the texts on which the films are based” (Domke et al., 2018, p. 51). Film, then, has served a routine set of functions in the classroom environment, and yet has potential for further exploration as a text on its own. Some teachers in the study network used film as a central text, others used film in combination with other curated texts, and many engaged in a mixture of both processes. As has been determined at the outset of this project, existing literature points to the existence of film as a teaching tool for some time. Arguably, a tool-based approach has existed; a text-based approach is one objective of the current network of studies.

Lemieux (2020) considered films, on their own, “efficient artworks to which students can respond, and through which they can undergo aesthetic experiences” (Lemieux, 2020, p. 48). It seems that film as an aesthetic and pedagogical function all its own, complete with the affordances for meaning-making and representation that can be found within the medium. At the same time, traditional approaches include pairing film with other texts. As suggested elsewhere, Baines and Dial (1995) pointed the use of storyboards and scripts in instruction as a uniting feature to focus on adaptation between and among types of texts. Such a process of using a range of compositional practices in a pairing of playful use of media has also been explored with second-grade students (Young & Rasinski, 2013), in which children engaged in “transforming mentor texts into Readers Theatre scripts and eventually into motion pictures” (p. 670). The steps in this instructional process included phases of scripting, storyboarding, and ultimately steps of filmic production. Ranker (2008) has also noted how youth engage in video studio work across a range of resources, including the interweaving of text and images, drawing from note-taking for directional steps in multimodal work.

Like literary texts, films have potential for “demonstrating the converging of different values, stereotypes, and hidden messages” (Rowsell et al., 2013, p. 1202), a concept that is true in both visuals and typographical texts. This notion of messages that might be obscured links with work on media-based texts and propaganda-based messages, as well. Instruction that revolves around film of any type is instruction that probes beyond the surface representation and elicits links and analysis.

As was the case with the process of using film, both curation and pruning are an aspect of this work. O’Byrne (2014) suggested that teachers are “curators” of media for classroom use (p. 103). Such curation can occur across disciplines and has the potential to exist in a classroom that centers a range of textual approaches. Kist (2000) has also noted how media might be considered a cross-curricular locus in New Literacies classrooms. The kind of classroom that Kist (2000) envisioned was likened to a studio, and contained a range of possibilities for student expression and connections across content areas. Notably, as has been explored in other chapters, the kind of textual work that such a classroom entails also included a sense of vulnerability on the part of the teacher as a leaner, constantly keeping up with changing media and ways of communicating.