Teacher-led Workshops

Workshops are listed alphabetically by workshop leader (all sessions are 1 3/4 hours long)

Magazines and Gender

Linda Buchanan

Media Lecturer, South Cheshire College, Cheshire

  • Particularly relevant to: OCR Unit 2755 Media Issues and Debates
  • Suitable for: new teachers.

How can we engage students with the concepts of representation, dominant ideology and gender so that they can offer critical analysis and discussion about what they see and read? How do we offer a delivery that not only relates to the students and their own personal experiences but also offers differentiation so that exceptionally bright students have the chance to demonstrate their exceptional academic potential? Magazines and gender offers students the chance to explore issues that touch on their everyday lives as well as offering an opportunity for in-depth analysis and debate.

The aim of this workshop will be to explore the issues related to this area, including representaion, ideology, dominant ideology and gender. You will also be involved in a group activity that I use with my students looking at femininity and/or masculinity in lifestyle magazines. Materials to take away with you will include handouts, newspaper articles, exemplar essays as well as the framework for a scheme of work that can be easily adapted to suit your own needs .

Subjectivity and Representation

Kate Holt

Assistant Principal, Tyne Metropolitan College, Tyne & Wear

  • Particularly relevant to: WJEC AS/A2 Film Studies, FS1, 3,4,5 & 6
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

This very practical session has developed through the experience of marking WJEC scripts, leading to a reconsideration of how subjectivity and representation can be taught through filmic language other than mise en scène. In this session Kate will use clips from a variety of films identified for study by the WJEC Film Studies syllabus to illustrate her ideas. Activities and teaching techniques will be supported with materials. The session will cover the following:

  • Establishing the audience - Cinematography in Kapur's Elizabeth: will examine how the audience is brought to identify with the key political values of the film and recruited to its specifically anti-catholic stance. The physical position of the audience in several key scenes is identified and the consequences of the moral ambivalence of the film on its audience will be discussed.
  • Establishing context - Intertextuality in O'Donnell's East is East: will consider how O'Donnell suggests not just time and place but narrative by referencing TV and popular musical texts in the opening sequence of the film.
  • Establishing subjectivity - Sound in Lean's Brief Encounter and The End of the Affair: will look at how the time of production has governed the subjectivities of the central characters. In particular, the role of non-diegetic sound in conveying subjectivity will be examined.
  • Discussing representation and authorial attitude in Almodovar's All About My Mother: will consider questions of authenticity deployed by Almodovar in his representation of the transexual Agrado. The nature of truth and authenticity will be discussed as a metaphor for the film's own constructions and more specifcally the difference between surface and depth meanings. In contrast to the section on Elizabeth, this activity will consider how Almodovar avoids forming judgements on his characters.

Starting out with Practical Production

Stephanie Hutchinson

Faculty Leader for Media and Expressive Arts, Caludon Castle School, Coventry

  • Particularly relevant to: All Media specs, but especially OCR Foundation and Advanced Production
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

All Media students are expected to engage in their own practical production work in some form. However, many teachers new to teaching Media, or hoping to widen the opportunities available to their students, approach such work with a degree of nervousness.

This workshop will give guidance and realistic suggestions for starting out with, or widening, Practical Production work. We will look at making this aspect of a Media Studies course meaningful and challenging for students, yet manageable for staff. The workshop will be based on my experiences leading Media teams in two large comprehensive schools, in both cases setting up the A level course from scratch. Both schools also deliver GCSE Media Studies, so we have had to factor in the use of equipment and work space across four year groups.

During the workshop, we will look at the requirements of the different specifications, with suggestions for:

types of equipment required; timing of the work during the course; structuring the work flow; links with other units; delivery of practical lessons; expectations of quality; and managing several different media in one department.

The workshop will be designed to enable teachers to make their own choices to suit their own institutions, students and styles. It will be illustrated with examples of students' work, both good and bad, in a variety of media, including film, print and web design . 

Teaching Documentary through Bowling for Columbine

Rick Instrell

Freelance Media Education Trainer, Midlothian

  • Particularly relevant to: All specifications
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

This workshop will first consider definitions and taxonomies of documentary (realist, formalist, subjective, hybrid) and will look briefly at the problematic area of reality television and its institutional and audience contexts. It will conclude that the best way to teach documentary is by using a key concepts approach. The key concepts will be presented as a concept map, which which will then be applied, to Bowling for Columbine. Various aspects of the film will be considered, e.g. Moore as auteur; use of montage, mise en scène and image/sound relationships; rhetorical narrative form; use of argumentation schemes; institutional, audience and technological contexts; the controversies surrounding the film.

Teaching TV Crime Drama

Julie Patrick

Freelance Media Lecturer and Teacher, Ryburn Valley High School, Halifax

  • Particularly relevant to: WJEC ME1 & ME6, AQA Modules 1 & 5
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

This workshop will discuss crime drama with reference to American and English TV series. It will look at the key concepts of: narrative, representation and audience. It will look at various aspects of the genre, such as iconography, typical structures, characters and stereotyping and how the genre has changed and developed over time. Technical aspects such as lighting, camera work and editing will also be looked at and how these are used to create appropriate mood and atmosphere. We will also make links and comparisons with other TV genres and make some reference to film and its influence on the style of crime drama.

Crime drama has been a popular genre since the very first days of television. When tracing its history it is unsurprising, but interesting to observe how this genre in particular reflects the social values and ideology of the time in which it was produced. While looking briefly at this history I will refer to the development of the genre and changes in representation over time. Crime dramas tend to fit into one of three structures - the team, the pair or the individual. We will analyse examples of these dramas, concentrating on narrative structure and character representation. I will also consider the nature of the audience for this genre, what its expectations are and how it reads crime dramas. I will also ask if more sophisticated audiences are leading to more sophisticated techniques being used.

I will provide appropriate notes and teaching materials and reference other useful materials and websites; discuss how teachers could use this close analysis of crime drama as a useful introductory module for the AS courses; look at crime drama as a useful lever into a variety of the synoptic papers and unseen elements in particular.

Teaching Advertising and Marketing

Elaine Scanlan

Head of Media Studies, Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College, Stockport

  • Particularly relevant to: All Specifications, but particularly AQA
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

The study of a dvertising texts can provide an accessible starting point for introducing Media Studies key concepts, since advertising and marketing utilises a wide range of media, and is a type of text all students will encounter daily. However, the discourse of the advertising and marketing industries can be rather esoteric, and putting together learning materials can be time-consuming, since many Media teachers are working in comparative isolation.

Teachers who are new to the subject area might well feel confident in approaching the analysis of linguistic elements of a text, but less certain about how to encourage close analysis of images. This is a highly practical workshop, offering some concrete suggestions for identifying suitable campaigns and developing materials. It will focus on both print and moving image, and will consider film marketing as one area that offers a wealth of opportunities for the practice of analytical skills.

The issues addressed are central to all specifications, particularly since advertising and marketing texts are commonly set for unseen examinations, but the session will be especially useful for teachers delivering the Advertising and Marketing topic for the AQA specification. There will be time to discuss what works (and what doesn't), and to pool ideas.

While the workshop is primarily intended for new teachers, more experienced teachers are welcome, and some consideration will be given to strategies for the sharing of good practice after the workshop. Don't keep re-inventing the wheel! Come along and contribute your own ideas and experience.

Teaching East Asian Horror

Roy Stafford

Freelance Film and Media Trainer, West Yorkshire

  • Particularly relevant to: A2 Media, AS Film
  • Suitable for: new and experienced teachers.

The international success of Ringu (Japan 1998) started a new cycle of horror films, which has subsequently been embraced by Hollywood with its re-makes of two Ringu films plus Ju-on and Dark Water. The workshop will explore how a comparison of originals and remakes provides a useful introduction to the importance of genre conventions and the different cultural contexts of production. Reference will also be made to the historical development of these conventions. A secondary objective will be to discuss the concept of generic cycles, which in this case extends to production in South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Horror is a popular genre with students. This particular cycle with its active female investigators is particularly attractive to female students. Experience suggests that these films are accessible for students who might otherwise be reluctant to engage with subtitled films. The workshop will be useful for teachers approaching Genre as a critical concept at A2. It is linked to students' events on the Horror Genre running at Pictureville Cinema, Bradford and Cornerhouse, Manchester. The comparison between Hollywood and East Asian versions of the same narrative could also be used in the FS1 module for WJEC AS Film Studies.

Last Updated: Wednesday, 21-Feb-2007 16:06:27 GMT