Bringing Books and Movies Together
Robyn Gioia
Teaching today’s students is a different ballgame than twenty years ago.
Even ten years ago. This is a generation of visual learners. Students in middle school down through elementary have grown up on cell phones and tablets. Visuals accompany almost everything they read. There isn’t a day go by that my students don’t say, “Can we see a picture of that?”
In the forefront are movies, moving visuals that provide setting, plot, memorable characters, action, and a storyline that comes to life in a different era.
This provides a great opportunity to take advantage of the stage movies produce.
Heroes stand out. It is from their hardships and the trials that follow that make history. One such hero is Harriet Tubman, a slave and political activist, who escaped captivity, and returned as a “conductor” to lead slaves through the “underground railroad” to freedom during the 1800s. She did this repeatedly, even though it put her in grave peril and she carried a bounty on her head.
Enter the Harriet Tubman Movie:
Give students rich opportunities to learn more. Set the background. Provide students with information that provides historical depth and broadens the movie’s perspective.
Go beyond the internet. Teach your students the value of book research. Provide the class with a broad collection of books, both informational and historically based. Encourage them to be detectives. Encourage them to find the clues that tell us more. (Adjust as needed for your level of students.)
Brainstorm with the class. Discuss the different aspects of the movie. What questions do they have? Was the movie historically accurate? What was correct and what was fiction? Were the characters true to life? Did the plot follow the facts?
Examine the bigger picture. What drove the economy? What kind of society was it? What was happening politically? What were the customs? How did these things contribute to Harriet’s plight?
Divide the class into topics that were generated from their discussion. Let your students discover the answers through research. Teach them how to use the book index and chapter headings to speed up fact finding. Groups love to share what they’ve learned with others. Provide time each day to let them tell their favorite fun facts. Help them become experts.
Make an Experts’ Bulletin Board: At the end of each session, have students post fast facts and visuals from their book research. Provide a parking lot for questions. Let the specialized experts research the answers and post them on the board.
Have a Socratic Seminar: Pose thought provoking questions and let students discuss the answers citing evidence from their research.
Stage a Debate: Students choose an historical issue and debate the pros and cons.
Read historical novels.
Below are some of my favorite activities for Book Reports or/and Research Projects:
- Write a Readers’ Theater.
- Produce a historical newspaper with student journalists.
- Write a picture book for first grade.
- Create a Jeopardy game.
- Design a board game of the Underground railroad. Create a schoolwide simulation.
- Make a Slideshow to teach others.
- Write and perform a skit.
- Design posters.
- Produce a new book jacket cover.
- Design an informational brochure.
- Produce a video clip.
- Create trading cards.
- Write a story using historical evidence based on a different perspective.
- Write and perform a song.
- Create a dance.
- Write a poem.