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Documentary Teacher Resources
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Show your pupils how to use guiding questions to help them focus their research into a topic. Using the framework provided by these questions, researchers explore a topic, collect interesting facts, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation on their topic.
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the New York Times provides links to five short documentary films depicting Hispanic themes and culture. Learners can click on each embedded link to view the films, then answer each set of related analysis questions.
Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and a clip from a Sundance documentary. All three texts are about horses, and deal with deeper themes about the human condition. These nonfiction, multimedia texts would make a perfect pairing to a larger unit around a fictional text.
Students research and produce an iMovie documentary about the human and natural history of a stream basin (watershed).
Groups collaborate to create historical documentaries. In this American Civil Rights lesson plan, groups research primary and secondary sources about the events and people pertinent to the movement in the 1950s and 1960s. They then use Windows Movie Maker to create classroom presentations to share with their classmates. Several online resources are suggested here to explore the Montgomery bus boycott, the lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Rides, etc.
Practice responding to controversial information with the New York Times lesson provided here. Middle schoolers watch a video interview with the director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus. After reading a companion article, they identify the claims and controversies surrounding the documentary. Finally, individuals research and report on Biblical era artifacts and write analytical essays on claims that appear in The Lost Tomb of Jesus.
Learners are introduced to a project about documentary films. They view documentaries and choose a response project to complete selecting from among journal writing, making an original documentary and/or completing an art project.
Students explore oral history and documentary theater. In this genres of theater lesson, students connect stories of personal history to the creation of documentary theater. Students learn what characteristics embody documentary theater and explore the use of theater as a medium to express controversial perspectives.
Students discover some important people in the genre of documentaries. They examine their contributions made to the movement as well. They discover the history of documentaries as well.
Students are introduced to the three main purposes of a documentary. They view excerpts of films and discuss the documentary as a voice for the voiceless, a presentation of everyday life and an explanation of the process followed to arrive at an outcome.