Challenging the Cinematic Construction of 'Literacy' with Preservice Teachers

ISSN： 1470-1286

Source： Teaching Education, Vol.12, Iss.3, 2001-12, pp. : 301-314

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Abstract

As a practicum supervisor in the teacher education program at UW-Madison, I designed many projects and activities around "school films". I define a "school film" as a film that in some way, even incidentally, is about an educator or a student. Some well-known school films are Dead Poets Society, Stand and Deliver, and To Sir, With Love. Some lesser-known ones are Waterland, Welcome to the Doll House, Small Change, and Maedchen in Uniform. In this article, I discuss a project that involved taking up the film Teachers (1984) for the purpose of problematizing practicum students' traditional, "autonomous" views of literacy. The project's goal was to introduce students to a "Discourses" orientation toward literacy through a combination of "reading" both print and film texts, writing reactions to these texts, and discussing these reactions and the texts during seminars.