Edutopia

The Academy Awards are just around the corner, and there are a number of nominated films that can be great teaching tools for educators this year. With the abundance of media messages in our society, it's important to ensure students are media literate. The Oscars provide a great opportunity to use the year's best films to teach students about media and film literacy. Not to mention, films can also be an engaging teaching tool for piquing interest in a variety of subjects and issues. In this compilation, you'll find classroom resources from around the web that cover many of this year's nominated films, as well as general resources for using film as a teaching tool. First, we'll start with an Edutopia classic, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese discussing the importance of visual literacy and the power of film as a teaching tool. Film Lesson Plans and Interactive Activities: Into Film is a U.K. 8 More Film and Media Literacy Resources for Teachers

edutopia I'll admit I'm a bit biased here since I'm a filmmaker by trade, but I truly believe the process of planning and making videos can offer tremendous learning opportunities for students of almost any age. Not only is the idea of telling stories with video really engaging for many kids, filmmaking is ripe with opportunities to connect to almost every academic subject area. As the technology to shoot and edit films becomes more ubiquitous, where is a teacher with no experience in video production to begin? I've shared some resources below to help you and your students get started on making blockbusters of your own. Video Playlist: Student Filmmaking 101 Watch the player below to see the whole playlist, or view it on YouTube. 10 Tips for Beginner Filmmakers (10:37) Young filmmaker Simon Cade's channel, DSLRGuide, is one of the most popular for filmmaking tutorials. More Resources on Student Filmmaking

Nothing Beats the Real Thing! Resource Downloads. Persuasive Language For teachers wishing to assist students to prepare for the NAPLAN writing task. This resource includes a classroom-ready writing task, complete with marking criteria modelled on the NAPLAN rubric. Rabbit-proof Fence An examination of sources to assist students assess the representation of history in films, reflect on opinions about the Stolen Generations and explore copyright. Copyright & Digital Citizenship To develop students’ understanding of good digital citizenship, copyright and the impact of content piracy. Making Movies Making Movies is a free online resource for secondary school students that provides a comprehensive insight into how films are made and the people who make them. Print Units What kind of Australia do you want? Students respond to questions about the type of creative world they want to live in. Is it all my own work? Help students tell what’s legal and what’s not in creating their own work and navigating the digital world. How do laws change?

Roger Ebert Lists the 10 Essential Characteristics of Noir Films - Open Culture A Criterion Collection list of Roger Ebert’s 141 “Great Movies” includes only two films noir—The Third Man and The Killing—yet the late great critic had quite a lot to say about the genre. In an interview with radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge, for example, Ebert described noir films as teaching their characters a lesson: “that they’re weaker than they thought they were and they’re capable of evil that they didn’t think they could commit.” His deeply philosophical discussion will draw you into the nihilistic abyss at the heart of noir. And yet many of his reviews of such films comment as much on surfaces as depths. For all their psychological brutality, noir films were nothing if not stylish. Ebert’s enthusiastic review of 2005 neo-noir Sin City, for example, calls it a movie “not about narrative but about style… a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids.” 1. Be sure to see Ebert’s full piece here. Related Content: The Third Man: Film Noir Classic on YouTube