showing films in the classroom

Literature and films

At GBSD, we teach units that address learning standards of the Maine Learning Results. For English Language Arts, under Literature and Culture, are these:

Identify the main and subordinate characters in literary works.
Explain how the motives of characters or the causes of complex events in texts are similar to and distinct from those in their own experience.
Demonstrate an understanding of lengthy, complex dialogues and how they relate to a story.
Recognize the use of specific literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashback, different time frames such as the future or the past).
Recognize complex elements of plot (e.g., setting, major events, problems, conflicts, resolutions).

Literature is usually associated with thick and inpenetrable books, like War and Peace: but in fact literature is not a reading class, although it is often taught through reading. It is about great themes: love, passion, jealousy, compassion, change, and power, to name a few. Literature is a rich collection of stories that try and reveal insights into humanity and society. If my students can not explore these themes in books because the process of reading is often difficult, then we must try something else. That brings us to films.

I select films with great care, trying to find something that will interest and challenge the students. The pause button is used often, and the technology we have in the classroom is wonderful. With the laptop I can bookmark clips or freeze frames, so we can go to any point in the film with a click of the laptop, and have excellent discussions. The question Are People Good is one we are considering, and the first film I picked enabled us to ponder this question.

In January we watched Jean de Florette. This is a very simple story, magnificently told. Set in post WW1 France, it is the story of an old farmer and his nephew who want to get the farm adjacent to theirs, because it has a source of water, a precious spring. A young city man, Jean, inherits this farm, and sees it as a place to live the ‘authentic’ life with his wife and young daughter. Jean is trusting, indomitable, honest and enterprising. His neighbors, in order to get the farm, need Jean’s dreams to fail, so they can buy his land cheaply. And to facilitate this failure, they secretly block up the spring. Jean’s heroic struggle to water the plants on his farm is watched pitilessly by the old farmer, and with very mixed emotions from his nephew.

Jean’s struggle ends tragically: and his daughter, Manon, learns that the tragedy is not caused by nature, but by human greed. This knowledge sets the stage for the second part of the story, set 10 years later, in the film Manon des Sources.

Anyone hoping to see vengeance on the uncle in this second part will be disappointed, and I can not add any more comments as that would spoil the story for you!

Using great films like this one, with the wonderful technology we have in school, enables us to have great discussions and activities, which ensure that my students can enjoy the same kinds of exciting literature classes enjoyed in classes all over the state.

Jean de Florette may be a difficult movie to track down, but if you can rent a copy you will not be disappointed, and it will be a treat to share it with your child at home. I will save Manon des Sources for later in the year.