Thesis Proposal

Katrina Armstrong Graduate Project Proposal 1

Examining History Through Film: A Curriculum Development Project

Katrina Armstrong Project Proposal

January 2015


A. Introduction Presenting students with an array of options and angles to study the material they need to

learn is part of creating a modern curriculum. In order to spark student interest and engagement in social studies, it is possible to study history through the lens of film. Doing so would help increase media literacy, which students need in an increasingly media-centric environment and would emphasize the wide array of sources that exist with which history can be studied. The question then becomes: How can film be used in the social studies classroom to increase student engagement and comprehension of the study of history? Karl A. Matz and Lori L. Pingatore argue that films, like artifacts and photographs, can also bring students closer to the people and events they are studying (2005). A focused curriculum built around the study of history through film would address these issues and present students with a new option for connecting to their studies, and could become a valuable experience for students who are looking to further their exploration of history or those who might not be engaged by the traditional approach.

The problem with much of the current curriculum that dominates high school social studies classes rests largely with the unfortunate reality that many students find traditional history classes unengaging. Frequently, teachers do not include media in the classroom or introduce media that students are unlikely to interact with in their daily lives, creating an inauthentic environment. Finally, history classes can send students the message to students that popular media is not a legitimate source from which one can study history, furthering the distance between students and the material we want them to learn. Thus, the purpose of this curriculum design project is to create a course that presents students with a non-traditional avenue for studying history that also allows them to gain necessary skills for success in todays media-heavy environment.

In order to spark student interest and engagement in Social Studies, it is possible to study history through the lens of film. This curriculum design project aims to model how a course might be built to address these issues and achieve the goals of increasing student engagement and teaching them the necessary skills of media analysis while also increasing their understanding of history. The course would help increase media literacy, which students need in the media-rich environment in which they exist and would emphasize the wide array of sources that can be used to study history. Karl A. Matz and Lori L. Pingatore argue films, like artifacts and photographs, can also bring students closer to the people and events they are studying (2005). A focused curriculum built around the study of history through film would address these issues and present students with a new option for connecting to their studies, and could become a valuable experience for students who are looking to further their exploration of history or those who might not be engaged by the traditional approach.

B. Prior Research

While it is true that social studies classes have been utilizing film in the curriculum for many years, critics have emphasized that the use of film in the classroom has been inconsistent at best. Walker notes that while we have progressed beyond the push-to-advance slide projector with accompanying audio, advances in technology have not led to a similar evolution in the ideas of what historical films are and how they might be effectively used in the classroom (2006, p.30). Teachers in todays technology-heavy environment have access to a wide variety of resources which they can use to help build historical inquiry skills among their students. However, although the subject of the critical and effective use of film in the history classroom is a relatively recent topic of conversation, social studies educators readily admit that film offers opportunities to develop students historical understanding, including, but not limited to, interpretation of evidence, increased historical empathy, exploration of historical perspectives,


and connecting the past to the present and to ones own life (Marcus, 2005, p. 62). All of these skills and dispositions are essential to developing a social studies curriculum that addresses the demands of todays workplace and culture. By and large, it would appear as though most educators and researchers who examine the practice of using feature films to teach history are optimistic. The discourse surrounding the practice, while admitting the faults that plagued the instructional strategy in the past, readily admit films have a great potential to motivate and engage students with historical content and present alternative perspectives (Marcus, 2005, p. 61). Today, the discourse surrounding the development of culturally-responsive social studies methods is still described as being as being focused on active learning, just as it was one hundred years ago, but the question of what that active learning looks like is a little different. According to Russell (2010), twenty-first-century students are unique, especially with regard to technology. Most teachers are considered digital immigrants [people who have not been born into a technology-heavy environment], however their students are digital natives [i.e., those who have always been surrounded by technology similar to todays] (p. 66). As a result, todays students have skills and learning styles that go unincorporated in the classroom, as their teachers are still more likely to employ traditional methods of teaching that emphasize skills that students today do not find useful (Russell, 2010). Instead of continuing to allow the divide to grow, some are pushing for the development and implementation of a methodology more consistent with the skills, interests, and needs of the modern student. Many of the organizations involved in the policy-making decisions of the educational community (such as the National Council for the Social Studies are beginning to stress [the importance of] activities that allow students to create new knowledge or apply previously learned concepts to new situations, which means introducing a hands-on, constructivist perspective (Bolinger & Warren, 2007, p. 73). Media literacy is an essential component of this curriculum design project. This concept refers to the set of skills involved in interpreting and analyzing the media produced by society in a critical and effective manner. Given the rapidly shifting nature of modern culture and the rate at which new forms of media are created, educators should remember that the advent of new media requires significant media education, as explained by Walker (2010), who points out that the constantly shifting media landscape requires that people who are critical consumers of media be skilled in analyzing media from a broad approach. In order to do this, basic skills must be taught to students so that they might begin to apply them across different forms of media. Stoddard and Marcus (2010) emphasize that this process of teaching students to consume media critically must be deliberately taught, because without explicit instructions in critical analysis by a teacher, students do not naturally critique what they are seeing. Thus, films provide a natural opportunity for teaching media literacy, an essential skill in todays technology-based world (p.84). The inclusion of skills that give students the ability to analyze the message of media around them and the production elements that went into creating it are essential for success in both the job market today and in students daily lives. C. What do you plan to do? For my curriculum development project, I plan to create a course outline and framework, syllabus, and a sample two-week unit for a semester-long course. The course outline and framework will be designed to show the progression of units throughout the semester, and will detail the standards that are addressed in the course. The syllabus will convey course goals and objectives for the students, explaining what I want them to learn as well as how we will go about accomplishing those goals. In addition, the syllabus will serve as an example of how I believe the


course should be presented to students, in order to reinforce that this is not intended to simply be a class in which students can get by watching the movies and writing summary reports. I believe that part of achieving success with this approach will be clearly explaining the expectations early on, and the syllabus will demonstrate that. In addition, the syllabus will show the scope and sequence of the curriculum, demonstrating the progression through the course content. While the course outline and syllabus are important to communicate the underlying structure of the course, the sample unit is really vital in exhibiting exactly how the ideas presented in the project will play out in the lessons. While the course would begin with an introductory unit designed to prompt students to begin thinking like critical consumers of film with a focus on history, I believe it might be more valuable to see how some of the strategies that students would be employing in the course actually look when they are being applied in context. As a result, the sample unit included with my curriculum development project would be one that fit into the course following the establishment of a toolbox of skills. To begin the unit, students would start with a pre-assessment designed to show how much they know about the new historical period or topic. Beginning with a pre-assessment allows the instructor to gain a better understanding of what information students are already familiar with on a topic, if any. For example, if we were going to use Schindlers List to explore The Holocaust, a pre-assessment might reveal that students understand the concept of Axis and Allied powers, but need a review of the map in order to orient themselves appropriately. The teacher could then tailor the context they provide prior to watching the film. Students would then view the movie over several days, engaging in specific note-taking strategies designed to assist their appropriate processing of the film and with the aid of frequent breaks for processing and light discussion. Following a formative evaluation of their processing of the movie, students would then be presented with content. Background reading would occur here, establishing an overview of information regarding The Holocaust. Then, primary sources and could be presented and analyzed, using the film as a reference point to discuss representations and portrayals of real events. Primary source documents and analytical articles would help develop critical reading skills, and could be explored through the use of student-centered activities such as Socratic seminars. As the students learn more about the content, discussions could take place about why the director made specific decisions about the content and construction of the film and the message they were attempting to convey about the subject and time period. Finally, the summative assessment would require students to research a specific aspect of the film, such as costume or technology to assess its accuracy in the film, making a presentation in which they could choose the format and medium. D. How will you measure your results or what product will you produce? In order to explore the idea of using film to help students understand history, I will be constructing a syllabus and course outline that addresses these goals, as well as providing an example unit that will be used to illustrate the manner in which the concepts I present in my rationale and background will be presented in a classroom setting. The syllabus will present a course outline as the students would see it, including sample summative assessments and a timeline to guide students through the progression of content and concepts. A syllabus will help me to show the logical progression of content, as well as explain how this class could be marketed and presented to students to make it an appealing option for fulfilling credit requirements. The syllabus will also illustrate some of the more policy-related ideas that help form the backbone of the course. For example, I believe that students should be informed from the very beginning of the course that they will be expected to engage in analysis and will be


studying history by using film, not simply sitting, watching movies, then writing reports on those movies. Establishing these clear expectations up front emphasizes the nature of the course and sets the tone, which is important given the unique nature of the curriculum. A course outline will also be part of my final product, which will communicate the standards and sequence of the course. From this information, it would be possible for a fellow educator or an administrator to understand the framework of the course from a professional viewpoint, so that they might better understand how the standards and pedagogical framework function together to create a unified curriculum. From this outline, other educators could also achieve a better understanding of the scope and sequence of the course, as well as how it might be adapted to fit their own needs. The final portion of my product for this project will consist of the necessary materials for a two-week unit. The lesson plans, materials, and aligned goals and objectives will be provided in order to show what a sample unit from the course would look like. In this way, readers are able to better grasp what the concepts discussed throughout the project actually look like when they are put into practice. Providing a sample unit also allows me to demonstrate the analytical and student-driven nature of the course, hopefully dispelling any fears that the students will simply be viewing movies and not performing any meaningful academic inquiry. Additionally, the example unit would illustrate the ways in which the content would be conveyed by using film as an introductory avenue and lens. E. Contribution to Knowledge This project will take advantage of a growing body of knowledge concerning media literature and the use of alternative texts in the social studies classroom. In unifying several different frameworks and implementing a variety of strategies in order to create an engaging and relevant course plan, this curriculum development project will contribute a concrete example of how new media education can be implemented in the history classroom. Although a number of articles exist that detail sample lesson plans for how an instructor might go about using strategies that encourage active and critical engagement with alternative media sources such as film, few resources exist that illustrate how one might go about structuring a course centered around the examination of history through the lens of film. The development of this syllabus, which enables students to study history by utilizing alternative sources of media, represents a valuable addition to the field of social studies education. As students become increasingly frustrated by more traditional approaches to the topic that rely on textbooks and lectures to convey information, they disengage from the material and become more difficult to motivate. Students begin to question why they should be interested in the material they are supposed to be learning, doubting its relevance or presence in their everyday lives. Courses such as this present a new way of approaching the study of history in high school, one that takes advantage of media sources students interact with regularly to illustrate to students that a more thorough understanding of representations of history in the media can enrich their experience of even popular culture. The potential value of such a course to the field lies in its ability to attract students who might otherwise find history boring or frustrating.


Resources

Burgoyne, R. (2007). The balcony of history. Rethinking History, 11(4), 547-554. Bolinger, K., & Warren, W. J. (2007). Methods Practiced in Social Studies Instruction: A

Review of Public School Teachers' Strategies. International Journal Of Social Education, 22(1), 68-84.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: New Literacies, New Learning. Pedagogies:

An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195. Daly, T. (2009). Media Literacy. The National Council for the Social Studies. March 23, 2009.

http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/medialiteracy. Accessed November 9, 2014. Kaiser, C. (2010). Redrawing the Boundaries: A Constructivist Approach to Combating Student

Apathy in the Secondary History Classroom. The History Teacher, 43(2), 223-232. Jenkins, H., & John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, F. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of

Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. An Occasional Paper on Digital Media and Learning. John D. And Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation.

Marcus, A. S. (2005). "It Is as It Was": Feature Film in the History Classroom. Social Studies,

96(2), 61-67. Marcus, A.S., & Stoddard, J.D., (2007). Tinsel Town as Teacher: Hollywood Film in the High

School Classroom. The History Teacher, 40 (3), 303-330. Matz, K.A. & Pingatore, L.L. (2005) Reel to Real: Teaching the Twentieth Century with Classic

Hollywood Films. Social Education, 69 (4), 189. Mills, K. A. (2007). "Have You Seen "Lord of the Rings"?" Power, Pedagogy, and Discourses in

a Multiliteracies Classroom. Journal Of Language, Identity, And Education, 6(3), 221-241.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Framework for 21st Century Learning.

http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework, accessed November 8, 2014. Russell III, W. B. (2010). Teaching Social Studies in the 21st Century: A Research Study of

Secondary Social Studies Teachers' Instructional Methods and Practices. Action In Teacher Education, 32(1), 65-72.

Russell, W. B. (2012). The Art of Teaching Social Studies with Film. Clearing House, 85(4),

157-164. Stoddard, J. D., & Marcus, A. S. (2010). More than "Showing What Happened": Exploring the

Potential of Teaching History with Film. High School Journal, 93(2), 83-90.


Walker, T. L. (2010). The Red Pill: Social Studies, Media Texts, and Literacies. Learning, Media And Technology, 35(1), 1-14.

Walker, T. R. (2006). Historical Literacy: Reading History through Film. Social Studies, 97(1),

30-34. Weinstein, P.B., (2001). Movies as the Gateway to History: The History and Film Project. The

History Teacher, 35 (1), 27-48.

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