How History Is Depicted in Film:study guide - designed to assist educators develop critical viewing skills in their students as they screen historically set films - source: TIFFG Youth Education
Lesson Idea- Socials studies 11: Grapes of Wrath and the 'Great Depression' - Hollywood fantasy or true to life?
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The media creates 'myths' - & that's why we need to teach media literacy skills when showing video in class
LESSON IDEA: Have your students compare "facts" from the movie with facts from their textbooks and other sources. How many facts are different? similar? different? artistically enhanced? Here is an evaluation sheet for resources and a superb booklet on analyzing commercial films.
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quotes from Peter Seixas
read the whole articleWe live with an abundance of myths, from the victory at Vimy Ridge to the death of Diana... Some of our myths feel crusty and irrelevant, some of them don't work particularly well any more, and many of them contradict each other in their social and moral messages. But they surround us, nevertheless. Neither historians nor school history teachers should think of their job as making more of them. Distinguishing between myth and history can help to clarify what the job should be.
1. Comprehend the interpretive choices and constraints involved in using traces from the past to construct historical accounts.
2. Understand the pastness of the past, the distance between the present and the past, and the difficulty in representing the past in the present.
3. Acknowledge complexity and uncertainty; deal with multiple causes, conflicting belief systems, and historical actors' differing perspectives.
These criteria allow a distinction here between intensifying historical consciousness and (excuse the term) advancing it. Films, historical sites, historical fiction are excellent at intensifying historical consciousness, arousing interest, involvement, and imagination. Schools are in the best position to advance it.
Knowing what happened and what it means for us is more complex and more multilayered than the paradigms of myth and heritage can sustain. Young people are bound to poke around, under, and through the kinds of mythic narratives that once provided national cohesion, identity, and sense of purpose. We should delight in that. The purpose of teaching Canadian history in the schools should be to help them do it better.
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Show Commercial Films with Caution. . . slideshow
"We found that when information in the film was consistent with information in the text, watching the film clips increased correct recall by about 50 percent relative to reading the text alone," explains Andrew Butler, a psychology doctoral student in Arts & Sciences.
"In contrast, when information in the film directly contradicted the text, people often falsely recalled the misinformation portrayed in the film, sometimes as much as 50 percent of the time."
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Research ArticleAndrew C. ButlerUsing Popular Films to Enhance Classroom Learning: The Good, the Bad, and the Interesting1 , Franklin M. Zaromb1 , Keith B. Lyle2 , and Henry L. Roediger, III1 Address correspondence to Andrew C. Butler, Washington University, Department of Psychology, Campus Box 1125, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, e-mail: butler@wustl.edu.
ABSTRACT—Popular history films sometimes contain major historical inaccuracies. Two experiments investigated how watching such films influences people's ability to remember associated texts. Subjects watched film clips and studied texts about various historical topics. Whereas the texts contained only correct information, the film clips contained both correct information (consistent with the text) and misinformation (contradicted by the text). Before watching each clip, subjects received a specific warning, a general warning, or no warning about the misinformation. One week later, they returned for a cued-recall test about the texts. Watching a film clip increased correct recall of consistent information relative to recall of the same information when subjects did not see the clip. However, when the information in the film contradicted the text, subjects often (falsely) recalled misinformation from the film. The specific warning substantially reduced this misinformation effect. Teachers should use popular history films with caution and should warn students about major inaccuracies in the films.
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