Primary source documents serve as the bedrock of all reliable social studies. They provide firsthand facts, descriptions, opinions, and accounts which illuminate the distant world of the past while allowing us to better understand the present. To many students, however, primary source documents are foreign, verbose, and tedious.

In order to reach out to these students, a history teacher’s best weapon is often adaptation, especially through the medium of film. Passionate actors, perceptive directors, witty screenwriters, and elaborate costumes bring dusty historical documents back to life through an immersive audiovisual experience.

Yet with a bit of inspection, these cinematic adaptations of history can reveal much more than secondary historical details. By analyzing these films as primary source documents themselves, audiences can gain insight into the time period in which the movies were made.

This curriculum unit considers the story of Spartacus—the celebrated hero of ancient history and the 1960 film directed by Stanley Kubrick—as both a primary and secondary source of history. How does Spartacus compare to the ancient sources recorded before the common era? And how does Spartacus reveal the political and social turmoil which afflicted the United States throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s?

Al-Bab is a portal website designed to introduce non-Arabs to Arab culture by providing links to news sources, country profiles, articles, and a blog on Middle East current events. There are also specific links related to learning Arabic: dictionaries, language classes, textbooks, and other information pertaining to the study of Arabic. A free e-book, The Birth of Modern Yemen, is available for download.

Students who are authentically engaged in reading ask questions about the text, make their own interpretations, and connect the stories they read to their own lives. Moving from written works to their film counterparts opens the original piece to different kinds of interpretations. My unit focuses on creating a space in which students read through different lenses, produce different meanings, outcomes, and understandings in order to strengthen critical thinking skills and to build an infinite capacity for meaning. By examining the underlying embedded themes and then seeing how those ideas are adapted into other media, students will be better positioned to make higher ordered inferences. What impact might a documentary, movie, or animated version have on the readers? What might students notice that they otherwise may have missed in the text version? What connections can students make between text and film versions? Adaptation, the transformation of text to film, is apropos to this unit tentatively titled Adapting Literature to Capture Authentic Understandings as it seeks to present strategies to help students use select literary devices in order to help them understand implied universal themes.

In this activity, students will practice talking about time and movies. They will learn how to read the clock in Arabic, recommend a movie based on someone's preferences, and understand schedules.Can-Do Statements:I can understand the time when announced or shown to me.I can identify movies with the times they take place on a schedule.I can recommend a movie for someone according to his/her preference.

a recent revision of the film text
the revised text has altered margins deemed more helpful for printing the text....
fourth Amazon revision for printing

Word Count: 34761

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Students will be choosing and defending their opinions on a variety of cinematic topics. Students will also practice discussing opinions other than their own.

An Introduction to Moving Pictures

Short Description:
An introduction to film that explores film structure and analysis, with attention being paid to film in its contemporary global context.

Long Description:
Contemporary World Cinema is a free, open access introduction to the art and science of cinema. An adaptation of Moving Pictures. An Introduction to Cinema by Russell Sharman, James Skidmore’s Contemporary World Cinema preserves Sharman’s chapters on the tools and techniques of cinema (mise-en-scène, narrative form, cinematography, editing, sound and acting), and includes a new section on world cinema with an introduction to the concept, case studies of nine films from around the world, as well as an overview of the questions that guide film analysis.

Author Contact: skidmore@uwaterloo.ca.

Word Count: 74537

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Academy award winning Director Oliver Stone talks with UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler about Vietnam, his movies, and the art of cinema. (26 min)

Short Description:
Este libro de texto busca fomentar el visionado crítico de productos audiovisuales contemporáneos y el reflexionar sobre la representación de las culturas hispanas en webseries y vídeos musicales. This textbook aims to promote critical viewing of contemporary audiovisual products and thinking about the representation of Hispanic cultures in web series and music videos.

Long Description:
Culturas hispanas a través de la pantalla busca fomentar el visionado crítico de productos audiovisuales contemporáneos y el reflexionar sobre la representación de las culturas hispanas en webseries y vídeos musicales. La difusión y la popularidad de estos dos géneros justifican que se les dedique espacio en el currículo junto a otros géneros audiovisuales más consagrados, caso de los cortos y los largometrajes. El libro se ofrece en inglés y en español para que pueda ser utilizado en una amplia variedad de disciplinas académicas. Asimismo, el libro está organizado en unidades didácticas independientes, las cuales presentan diferentes estructuras y temáticas de forma que el profesor/a pueda seleccionar aquellas que mejor se ajusten a los objetivos concretos de su curso. Hispanic Cultures Through the Screen aims to promote critical viewing of contemporary audiovisual products and thinking about the representation of Hispanic cultures in web series and music videos. Increasing popularity of these two genres justify dedicating part of the curriculum to them along with other more established audiovisual genres, such as short and feature films. The book is presented in English and Spanish so that it can be used in a wide variety of courses. Finally, it is organized into separate units (each based on a different audiovisual product) with different themes, structures and length, so that teachers can select those units that interest them the most for a specific course.

Word Count: 52525

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This is Volume 2 of a textbook for a Fine and Performing Arts survey, an introductory course. It covers Theatre and Cinema.

In the face of renewed competition from Hollywood since the early 1980s and the challenges posed to Europe's national cinemas by the fall of the Wall in 1989, independent filmmaking in Europe has begun to re-invent itself. European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood re-assesses the different debates and presents a broader framework for understanding the forces at work since the 1960s. These include the interface of "world cinema" and the rise of Asian cinemas, the importance of the international film festival circuit, the role of television, as well as the changing aesthetics of auteur cinema. New audiences have different allegiances, and new technologies enable networks to reshape identities, but European cinema still has an important function in setting critical and creative agendas, even as its economic and institutional bases are in transition.

This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers and westerns, and European and Japanese art cinema. It explores the work of Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa. Through comparative reading of films from different eras and countries, students develop the skills to turn their in-depth analyses into interpretations and explore theoretical issues related to spectatorship.

This is a text by Dr. Christine Gengaro to be used primarily for film music appreciation courses. Some of the materials are applicable to music appreciation, cinema studies, film studies, music history, musicology, and media studies. It attempts to provide a methodology for studying and analyzing film music without requiring the specific study of a particular set of films. It is appropriate for those with musical backgrounds and those who simply love film music. Suggestions are made in the instructor materials for assignments and assessments that empower students to analyze films in multiple ways, drawing upon cultural context, emotional viewing experience, historical milieu, among other lenses.

This episode summarizes and reflects on the presence of gay populations in postsocialist Chinese society, especially in the two well-known films Lan Yu and East Palace, West Palace.

Combining a review of Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters and a reflection on personal history, this episode attempts to introduce the presence of lesbianism in socialist and postsocialist Chinese society.

When to teach this lesson plan?If you are looking for a speaking lesson to use with intermediate-level students, then this is a perfect lesson to use. This lesson plan on cinema is designed to use with students that are looking to increase their fluency in speaking English. This lesson should not be used to teach beginner-level students that are still learning to form basic sentences in English.If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.