Reading

All specifications assess reading both through coursework and within the final written examination; and candidates are required to experience a broad range of literary and non-literary texts. It is a requirement of the National Curriculum that students consider the reading of moving image texts within their entitlement, though not all examination boards use such texts as a means of assessing reading.

Reading films offers students many opportunities to develop their print reading skills, because many parallels exist between the two textual forms. In Screening Shorts we identified some important common ground, albeit for Years 7 to 9. For example, many print and moving image texts convey their meanings through narrative, character, setting, generic conventions, symbolism and imagery. Helping students to see these links can encourage them to look more critically at the texts that are required reading. Below are some general approaches to use with films to enable students to become more sophisticated readers of print. Each film includes more specific suggestions for activities that involve the development of literacy skills.

In order to achieve higher marks for their reading, students need to move from literal interpretation or surface reading, through inference and an appreciation of the implicit ideas, themes and attitudes within a text, to an evaluative reading, whereby a reader can take a detached view of a text and offer alternative and original interpretations of it, and can comment on the author's craft. The activities below are loosely arranged to mirror this process.

• Literal reading
• Inferential reading
• Evaluative reading

Literal reading

• Information retrieval

The old-style 'search and extract' written comprehension, where a short passage is followed by a set of closed questions permitting a very narrow range of answers, has been discredited as a means of effectively assisting understanding. However, looking or listening out for specific information in film can foster the kind of attentiveness that is a useful foundation for higher-order reading skills: how many nationalities are represented in Accident? What is George's family set up in The Little Things? How old are the children in Two Cars, One Night?

Looking for specific information in the end credits can lead to speculation about budgets, production values, provenance and so on, that equates to the kind of inferential reading often assessed within exam questions that focus on media and non-fiction texts.

• Recreating a still image

Build on the above activity, to encourage close scrutiny for detail, by presenting students with a still image, which they study closely. The students can draw or model the image, as a kind of tableau vivant, recreating it as accurately as possible. From literal replication you could move on to interpretation, by, for example, asking whether the physical distance between characters suggests their emotional distance, what kind of character is suggested by posture, what genre is suggested by the props... You could also encourage consideration of the author/film-maker's craft by examining the arrangement of the elements within the frame, the use of colour, or the choice of shot.

• Sequencing a story

Show students a film and then present them with a set of thin cardboard strips on which the events of the story are written. The students' task is to place the events in chronological order. This can be a challenging activity, drawing on students' inferential reading skills, if the narrative of the film has not presented the events in chronological order, perhaps by using flashbacks, or if cross-cutting has been used to link events causally or temporally. The narrative events in About a Girl are presented as a series of cutaways from her monologue, which is placed in the 'present'. There are also events implied, but never represented, in the story.

• Spot the shots

Students watch a sequence from a film and then guess how many shots were used. They then watch the sequence again, counting the shots, noting down what is seen and heard in each shot. The duration of each shot might also be recorded, depending on the nature of any follow-up work. Students could also note the shot transitions. (Were simple cuts used? Or was another kind of transition used such as a mix or wipe?)

However much detail is required, the skill is essentially one of gathering information rather than interpreting it. This could be used as a prelude to discussing the effects of editing - moving from the 'what' to the 'why', and would work well with two contrasting films, such as The First Time It Hits, with its very rapid montage technique, and The Most Beautiful Man in the World, with its longueurs.

Inferential reading

• Analyse a character through clothing, speech, behaviour and so on: predict how a character may develop. (Also see the discussion of characters and performance.)
• Identifying genre from plot, props, settings or other conventions, including style of font used in the opening titles and publicity posters: predict how the film might end. (Also see discussion of genre.)
• Fill the frame

Give students an image cut from a film still (or use the searchlight tool on an interactive whiteboard to hide a proportion of the frame) and ask them to draw in the rest of the still, for example from a singing and dancing sequence in 7.35 in the Morning. This taxes students' knowledge of genre (hence an image of a sinister figure might be completed with a drawing of an ominous-looking house) and knowledge of filmic conventions (an image of someone in medium-close-up might be transformed into an over-the-shoulder two-shot by the addition of an appropriately posed second figure). The activity might again lead into prediction of narrative or story.

• Listen to the soundtrack without the images

Students make notes about what they think the music and sound effects signal, speculate about the story, and then watch the film and compare it with their predictions. Films on the compilation with especially rich soundtracks include 7.35 in the Morning, The Most Beautiful Man in the World and The Little Things.

• Watch the film without the soundtrack

... then imagine the dialogue, voice-over, sound effects or music. Encourage students to think about different types of sound, including contrapuntal sound, and ironic voice-over. Watch the film with the sound and discuss how it changes how they view the film.

• Prediction:
  Watch the opening, and predict the ending; or speculate what has happened in the shot or scene prior to, or after, the one viewed. This can help to consolidate students' understanding of filmic or editorial conventions (such as shot/reverse shot for instance), as well as exercise their inferential skills. For example, pause 7.35 in the Morning at several points and both describe the prevailing mood and tone, and predict the next events in the story. Good pause points are the opening minute and a half until just before the man starts singing; his song up to the point where the first café customer joins in; and the final sequence after the whole 'cast' does the final dance. Alternatively, play the The Little Things up to the point we see the birthday cake.

Evaluative reading

• Comparison between written and moving image texts

Where a film version of a literary text exists, for example The Man with the Beautiful Eyes and the Bukowski poem it is drawn from, compare two parallel moments drawn from the film and the printed text.

Beginnings and endings are perhaps the most obvious and convenient sections to choose for comparison; but the introduction or arrival of particular characters into the written narrative, or descriptions of significant places, matched against their appearance in a film, are also very effective. Start by looking at the printed version and ask the students to convert it into sounds and images, perhaps initially by underlining appropriate sections and then by converting the passage into storyboard format. The exercise should raise questions about the difficulty - or necessity - of translating every detail into audio/visual form and the 'accuracy' of such translation. Similarly, this may lead perhaps into considerations of representation; the relationship between story and narrative and so on; or an analysis of an author's written style or literary craft. Indeed links might be possible which highlight aspects of style. For example, watching a sequence of short shots edited together to create a rapid pace might help to bring students' attention to the use of short sentences for similar effect.

• Freeze a frame and analyse it, then compare a corresponding moment in a written text. This activity works equally as well using an interactive whiteboard; an OHP with transparencies; or indeed as a paper exercise. The elements within the frame should be labelled and annotated, so that interpretation and analysis can be recorded. Close comparison of the image and the text helps readers to see what elements are present in the written text, stated explicitly or suggested implicitly, what is gained by visual realisation and what is lost. Again, this activity lends itself most obviously to The Man with the Beautiful Eyes.
• Considering the context

Watch one of the films, and interrogate it in order to draw some conclusions about the time and place depicted, and the values of the society shown, for example working class life in contemporary Manchester (About a Girl), life in London (Jus' Gaps and Accident) and Maori life in New Zealand (Two Cars, One Night and The Little Things). This may help to address the problem that chief examiners often complain about: that students do not show an awareness of the social, cultural and historical context of a text but just shoe-horn into their essays a well-rehearsed, all-purpose paragraph detailing some general historical facts. NB, beware of students assuming that films present true or accurate portrayals of life and culture...

• The director's commentary

Providing the director's commentary to a film sequence allows students to reflect on the craft and artistic choices of the film-maker, distancing themselves from what is seen and heard, in order to give their own justifications for, and evaluation of, the particular form and shape of the text. Applying similar critical distance to a written text is a requirement for higher grades.

This could be tried with any of the films, though the ones that feature less or no dialogue (The Most Beautiful Man in the World, Killing Time at Home, The First Time It Hits,) have 'space' on the soundtrack for voice-overs.

• Film poems

Using a sequence from a film that is particularly enigmatic and allusive, ask students to write a poem to accompany the images; along with an 'explanation' or critical commentary for their poem. The extract should be shown without sound. If the sequence is carefully chosen, and suitable restrictions are placed on the writing to avoid simple, literal description, this can produce some interesting results that draw on students' higher-order reading skills. Sequences that involve montage and graphic matches can stimulate poetry that uses symbolism, metaphor and sharp juxtapositions to convey its meaning; and this can help students to respond to the use of similar devices in written texts they are required to study. For example, the symbolism of the branded fingers in Simon Armitage's 'I am Very Bothered' - a poem commonly studied with this age group - can become more redolent of meaning if students begin to appreciate the technique of graphic match, or superimposition; and see the possible significance of merging imagery of wedding rings with that of circles of branded skin caused by slipping fingers through red-hot metal scissors. Films that would work well in this context include The Most Beautiful Man in the World, and perhaps About a Girl, if students used a transcript of the girl's monologue as the basis for a piece of poetry.

All films on the compilation lend themselves to writing poetry, if the sequence is chosen with that in mind. You can also choose one evocative still from the film and get the students to do a mind map around the image and then write a poem with these words.