Film Scenes

My idea would work both in the Theatre classroom, as well as an English classroom (I think). The idea is that, as a class, we would create film adaptations of a book. It could be the book that we are studying, or it could be randomly assigned text (or even personal choice). For example, if we are studying Much Ado About Nothing, students could choose 3-5 scenes to adapt for film. Over the course of the unit, students will be able to learn about production of the medium of film by storyboarding, collaborating, writing, and even filming. The example would give the students the opportunity to learn about the language of film through lecture, and then application as they discover how to tell their story and how to communicate their message. This idea would explore representation, and would encourage critical analysis as students develop their scenes. They would need to seriously analyze their scenes and determine what their scene is really telling about and what messages are being conveyed. Student would also need to know who their audience is. They would select a specific audience and design their adaptation for that audience.

This idea would be better for an entire unit, not just one specific activity. I guess the final activity would be the creation of the film. I know this idea isn’t fully fleshed out, but I think that there is potential to address all the key concepts that Buckingham writes about.

I hope that this activity is an exciting way to teach a theatre or English text through, and I think that aligning it with Buckingham’s principles would only make it stronger as an activity to teach media literacy.