Teaching Film and Visual Media

When teaching film and visual media, the reason is not only to familiarize students with works I consider important, but also because they are a great way to practice multi-literacy. Discussions of films, whether long or short, complement the both literary and theoretical, text-based components of my classes, and the skills of critical literacy conveyed through them. In fact, whether a material belongs to the verbal or the visual sphere, the works I choose for my courses form part of a larger, cultural intertext. Films can and should be read like texts, as any student of film theory will know. Attention to detail, cross-references, and multiple ways of entering and exiting, of going through a work are only some of the parallels. The inclusion of films enriches these analytical and critical practices immensely, as multiple layers of significance (image, sound, plot, sub-text, para-text) are at work, always making for engaging discussions.