Teaching Tolerance
Film Festival
Everybody's a critic—even your pupils! Using the included resources as a guide, screen films related to social justice and ask film enthusiasts to critique them. Publish the reviews for your school community or develop a film festival...
Curated OER
Film Reviews
Write film reviews in your class. Learners read film reviews, discuss the topics covered in these types of articles, and write their own critique of a movie. While this resource provides a simple template for this type of exploration, it...
Curated OER
English Lesson Plans for Grade 12
HIgh schoolers respond to a persuasive article on using animal research. In this english lesson, writers listen to a conversation, and discuss the point of arguments. They write a critique on a certain film and share it with their...
Curated OER
Latin American Film
Students critique, discuss, and identify characters in a film about Latin America. In this Latin America lesson plan, students watch the film and discuss the film and everyday life.
Curated OER
Creating and Using a Checklist of Performance Techniques to Critique and Find the "Message" in Mass Media Performances
Students analyze and critique theater events by evaluating and constructing meanings from improvised and scripted scenes and from theater, film, television, and electronic media productions.
Teach With Movies
The Great Gatsby
Are you thinking about incorporating a film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel in a study of The Great Gatsby? Check out a guide loaded with suggestions for how to supplement a reading of the novel with scenes from three film...
Anchorage School District
Writing Effective Summaries
Drafting a strong first sentence for a summary is an important step. Writers can use the formula presented on this handout to get started. The resource lists three steps to put together a strong topic sentence, as well as tips and hints...
Curated OER
Screen Play
High schoolers examine the New York Times review of the film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and explore the elements of scriptwriting. They read the article about the film adaptation screenplay and examine a sample...
Curated OER
Lesson: After Nature: Dystopia and Detournement
Werner Herzog's film, Lessons of Darkness is the topic of this lesson on art, politics, and culture. Learners discuss the concepts of utopia, dystopia, detournment, and Scorched Earth then compose a paper which describes dystopian reality.
Curated OER
Old Hobbits Are Hard to Break
Explore film adaptation of literature with this lesson, which focuses on the world of film advertisements. Middle schoolers discuss various films (including The Lord of the Rings) and create advertisements for a pretend film based on a...
Curated OER
Using Writing to Resolve Conflicts
This lesson leads students to learn to use writing as a conflict resolution strategy, use re-writing as a way to improve writing skills, learn to respectfully critique another's writing, consider situations from a variety of perspectives...
Global Oneness Project
Deconstructing Consumerism
A short, engaging video provides a critique of the hyper-consumerist mentality that many think have taken over the Western world. After watching the video, pupils reflect on their own habits and use evidence to respond to discussion and...
Curated OER
Creating Plays from Children's Stories
Students explain how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play. They write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution.
Curated OER
Reading the Movies: Another Approach To Teaching Critical Thinking Skills And Writing
Students explore the elements of film to analyze character, action, and the themes in the movie, "Quiz Show." The lesson plan encourages students to make personal connections and real life applications as they view the movie, critically.
Curated OER
The Passion has reviewers passionate
Students present in writing their reactions to the given prompts. Students watch some of the trailers for filming online. Students attend a showing of the movie on their own and write a review of it through analysis and utilizing their...
University of Southern California
Coming to America After the War
As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War II. To...
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Imperialism, Arab Nationalism and World War I
Continued conflict in the Middle East makes this lesson relevant, and the inclusion of a critique of Lawrence of Arabia might increase student interest in a potentially challenging topic. The resource includes a solid introduction to the...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Composers
Young scholars identify various pieces of music that are familiar to them and define how the music made them feel. Then they select their favorite piece of music heard and the activities in which they like to do. Students also attend a...
Curated OER
Comparing Themes Across Texts
Read various texts to compare the themes across each text. Learners write a journal entry describing the most beautiful scenery they've seen and use a map of the United States to locate the Sequoia National Park and Muir Woods. They then...
Curated OER
Introduction To Literary Analysis
Explore the fascinating ways in which authors use specific literary devices to create interesting and realistic texts. Using non-fiction articles with the subject of rogue waves, an excerpt from The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger,...
Curated OER
What Makes the Writer Write?
Students study Charles Dickens's Great Expectations to gain insight into a classical piece of fiction and to explain how writers respond to social conditions. They also consider how that response is important today.
Curated OER
A Voyage of Endurance
Students apply the three different types of journal writing by composing one of each type on the subject of Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica. They also
write a dialectical journal summarizing the facts of the expedition and...
Curated OER
Gandhi's Alternate View of Women: Changing the Face of Modern Media & Advertising
Eleventh graders analyze the violence of media and advertising on women, as well as Gandhi's views of women. In this women and media lesson, 11th graders Killing Us Softly and Tough Guise as an analysis of media and advertising and their...
Curated OER
Interviewing a Fairy Tale Character
Students demonstrate question and answer/interviewing skills. They brainstorm questions they would like to ask each other and then interview their partner who will be a fairy tale character. Interviews will be filmed with a video camera.