Introduction

Film and literacy - making the link

Many teachers are already aware that the time has come to rethink fundamental approaches to the teaching of literacy. No longer does the word text solely imply the words written on paper. A text can equally be the words of a soundtrack or those of a script, and the author a director and creator of moving imagery, as well as a composer of written text. It is no longer acceptable to separate our conventional understanding of the purposes of reading, writing, speaking and listening from what is offered by ICT - which must include sound and visual literacy.

We could argue that one of the major reasons why the use of moving image media - the communication bit of ICT - has not become entirely embedded in schools is because it has never been fully integrated into the objectives and assessment process for the lesson - or indeed across the curriculum as a whole. Just as children move seamlessly from one medium to another, extracting what they need, so should the teacher in the classroom. And we need to do this within a context of progression - exploiting those opportunities for evaluation which include critical thinking and analysis. Only then does the curriculum become alive, relevant and truly creative.

More specifically, practical advantages and key reasons for using short films to help teach literacy at Key Stage 2 include:

• A short film can be screened in its entirety easily within one lesson. Longer films lose their impact by being viewed either over a number of lessons, or by being screened only in extract form.
• The short running times of the films make repeated viewings possible, and thereby pupils can acquire very detailed familiarity with the work under consideration.
• Film is an inclusive medium, accessible to students of diverse learning styles, experiences and needs by virtue of its rich variety of visual and auditory content.
• Short films, like short stories, are not necessarily governed by the same conventions as their longer counterparts. These departures from more familiar forms and narrative structures very often hold an audience more securely, and provoke stronger responses, than more traditional films.
• Film and print, while different in many ways, are also very closely allied; and the study of each within the context of the other can make visible many shared or related practices and conventions.
• A short film can offer a manageable and stimulating resource to develop core skills which lie at the heart of the Primary curriculum.

Aims of this pack

This is not a prescriptive resource. It offers a flexible and versatile way of addressing the requirements of the curriculum, while indicating ways of stretching pupils' understanding of how film texts work.

As a follow up to Story Shorts it builds upon and extends the range of concepts introduced in that pack. The films have been chosen because they offer multilayered meanings and rich sources for investigation and exploration. This guide introduces you to a range of ways of making connections between print texts and films, drawing out the parallels and specific rules and codes of each form. The practical ideas, schemes of work and lesson plans provide flexible ways into studying each film with your classes. We hope that you will use them as springboards for developing your own work with short films.