Great Films by William Costanzo presented information that I never really thought about. In high school, I was never given the opportunity to actually study films. I remember a couple of teachers using films as a supplemental after we read the book version of the story, but never did we just watch a film and critique it. I strongly believe that giving students to opportunity to study film could be quite beneficial. Not only will studying films teach students have to think critically about different themes and offer an alternative way to do a critical analysis, it also would be a great motivator. It will spark interest amongst your students by infusing a different modality.
Costanzo offers different ways for teachers to approach utilization of films in the classroom and he also provides formats for film reviews. The film review formats that he provides could serve as a pre-writing activity after they have already viewed the film. It allows students to get all of the important information they have collected for the film on paper before they go more indept with it.
I definitely plan on using as many films that I can in my future classroom. I believe that students do not always have to read novels in order to acquire information to write papers or do critical activities. A lot of the films that Costanzo listed in his book are known as classics and some of the films are in book form. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird; the book version and the movie are so closely related because during that time period producers did not manipulate the storyline as much as producers do today. I say that to say, when watching classic movies students can still get the same message that they would have got from reading the book. I also believe that this is a more effective way of showing films in the classroom instead of using it just as a supplemental because students are getting more knowledge out of the activity.
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