| See also "Screen play: Reading Film " by Dawn Dietrich |
by Tony Prichard, English Department
Approaching teaching of English 364 Introduction to Film Studies: Independent Filmmakers with Dawn Dietrich involved a combination of two factors necessary for learning, support and challenge. My previous teaching experience has been in the English 101 classroom as a graduate teaching assistant, so the instructional environment of the film course challenged my developing ideas about pedagogy. Dawn provided support throughout this process that instructed me in understanding the similarities and differences between the composition classroom and the film classroom. Within the film classroom I found that the collaboration between student and instructor to be a place to continue learning about the practice of teaching.
Teaching English 101 allows beginning instructors a large degree of autonomy by allowing each graduate teaching assistant to choose readings and design both the assignments and instructional materials. Within the first year composition classroom the facilitation of student discussion, feedback on student work, and attention to student concerns are essential components of my pedagogy. Each year the department offers a number of internships to take place during a student's second year in the program. These internships combined with English 594 "Practicum in Teaching" allow the student to work closely with a professor over the course of one quarter. This practicum teaches beginning instructors about various pedagogical styles and the operations of different classrooms.
Soon after learning that I had not been selected for an internship I discussed options with both Dawn and the English Department's Director of Graduate Studies, William Smith, concerning enrolling in the practicum without the internship. The possibility of teaching with Dawn in her film course was an opportunity that I felt would be essential to my development as both a graduate student and teacher. I viewed working with Dawn as a learning situation where I could begin to critically question and reexamine my own forming ideas about pedagogy. I felt that being involved in the teaching of a class other than English 101 would give me an understanding of how the institutional goals stressed in the first year composition classroom build essential foundations for classes throughout the campus.
Sharing the labor of instruction in English 364 with Dawn was interesting and complex in that collaboration is an essential aspect of teaching. The cycle of teaching, assessment, and revision of teaching strategies is a collaborative process not only between student and instructor but also among colleagues. Although teaching assistants work collaboratively through consulting with each other about ideas and assignment design rarely do we teach together in the same classroom. This environment of collaboration allows beginning teachers to draw upon successes, reevaluate problems, and learn from our peers.
Having previously worked with Dawn in her English 417 senior seminar in winter of 2003 I was fortunate to have developed a relationship with a scholar with similar interests to my own. After that course Dawn suggested that I submit my paper as part of a panel from WWU to the Science for Literature and Science (SLS) conference. Attending and presenting at the conference I saw many collaborative projects concerning technology, criticism, and art. The spirit of collaboration at the conference was something I wanted to emulate in the practicum in teaching. For this year's SLS conference Dawn and I will be collaborating on a writing project on Tom Tykwer's Run, Lola, Run—one of the films discussed in our English 364 class.
Each instructor and graduate student pair approaches the situation of sharing duties in the classroom differently within the departmental guidelines. Some pairs will decide that a student will run class for a certain number of days and the professor on others. From the outset Dawn and I were interested in creating a classroom where we could work as a team to offer students a multifaceted learning environment. Our collaboration involves combining the different readings and analyses that we each bring to a discussion of film technique, film theory, or a specific film. By illustrating the ways in which our interpretations weave together into a complex approach to a given text, our process of teaching allows us to model skills of analysis and synthesis for our students.
A primary emphasis of our work in the course has been to illustrate that both Dawn and I are as involved in creating knowledge in the course as the students are. As we present on the various texts in the class we invite students to develop upon the knowledge that they are creating as informed spectators critically engaged with a text. Since many of the students enrolled in the class are avid film viewers our task becomes instructing them in the concepts in film theory, the techniques of filmmakers, as well as the kinds of knowledge that previous scholars have produced.
One of the most important aspects of teaching with Dawn concerns the ability to offer support not only for the other teacher but also for all the learners in the room. In our film class we achieve this by teaching students how to read film. During each class session, while discussing a film, Dawn and I will model ways to approach creating a detailed reading of a scene. In doing this we simultaneously demonstrate the close reading of the text and show how we read film differently while using similar techniques. By doing this the students see how alternative viewpoints can both be accurate, if sufficiently supported by evidence within an interpretative framework. Even more importantly, in our modeling we can show how two thinkers can approach the same material and develop different views that create a new understanding about a text.
Much of our modeling early in the quarter consisted of introducing the introductory concepts, terms, and techniques of film studies. As our class concerns introduction to film a large part of the initial instruction concerns developing critical faculties of students. Since English 364 introduces students to the theory, technique, and concepts of film studies the class requires different texts to offer support in building these frameworks. For film technique the text Film Art by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson familiarizes students with ideas in film form, technique, history, and genres of film. By illustrating these technical aspects of the medium, such as editing, sound, and narrative, the readings from Film Art help inform the discussion on a film. Additionally the complex issues in film theory play a significant role in student learning in the class. As the course's only prerequisite is English 202 Writing About Literature English 364 often functions as a student's first exposure to these theoretical frameworks. Since readings in film theory are challenging for readers with strong theory backgrounds, the task of teaching these texts requires that Dawn and I simultaneously foreground social and aesthetic concerns while discussing theory. Our text for theory, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen's Film Theory and Criticism, includes many pieces combining the approaches of Feminism, Marxism, Post structuralism, Post colonialism, and Psychoanalysis to discuss issues, such as the ideological functions of the cinema, the role of the spectator, and the problems of representation. These readings in film theory provide the students with conceptual frameworks to examine, apply to the films they watch, and, through critical questioning, complicate. Through the assignments in the course students begin to apply their learning in these areas to build their own informed readings of film.
One of the assignments in the class that allows students to develop their skills
reading film is the screening report. Students turn in at the end of each week
a short piece on the film we have discussed. This exercise allows for students
to think in depth about a specific aspect of the film and develop the close
reading skills essential for critical analysis of film. Often when students
approach a new discourse or learning environment instructors need to offer a
balance of challenge and support. These screening reports work as a laboratory
where students can try out the new ideas they are learning each week and start
to develop informed positions about film practice, technique, and theory. In
a short piece like the screening reports students can take risks that are necessary
to acquire concepts and key terms while gaining useful feedback from instructors.
In this way the assignment serves students by providing a challenge that allows
them to develop upon what they are noticing about a certain film and explain
the film text through specific language and evidence.
In addition to giving students an assignment to develop working with the concepts
and language of cinema studies the screening reports also inform our class discussion
each week. Students are invited to draw topics from the first day of discussion
on a film to develop through their writing on the assignment. On the second
day of discussion on the students continue the conversation by discussing their
screening reports. In this way the screening reports allow students entry to
the scholarly conversation around the film text. In terms of collaboration on
the screening reports I develop a list of key terms drawn from Susan Hayward's
Cinema Studies for students to refer to and, after consulting with Dawn,
post the list to the class discussion board. In this way my work in the class
works to scaffold Dawn's work in designing the class.
Student led presentations in class further support student directed learning
by giving students the chance to teach the class about a second film by a director
that the class has previously discussed. Students in this group setting demonstrate
their learning by making connections to other films, teaching the class about
the various viewpoints held upon the film critically, and explaining the significance
of the film within the director's body of work. Dawn and I meet with the group
members prior to the presentation to answer questions, offer feedback, and suggest
possible resources that might assist them in preparing for this task. After
each of these presentations Dawn and I meet to discuss the group's presentation.
In these meetings we talk about the strengths of the presentations and the areas
where the group could have brought more support or detail to the analysis. These
meeting allow us to assess our own instruction and recognize where we need to
offer more detailed instruction in future classes. Through this cycle of assessment
and revision of teaching practices we use the assignments in the class for both
instruction of our students and as a means to develop how we teach the class.
A large part of a film class that varies from other classes in the English department concerns the position of technology in the classroom. The act of close reading of a text involves a completely different set of parameters in the film classroom than that of a literature classroom. The apparatus in the literature classroom is for the most part a portable one, the book. The apparatus of the cinema, the screen, the projector, and the darkened room must all be present in the film classroom. Dawn and I stress the specificity of the medium of film while simultaneously asking students to think critically about the effects of the technology of film. The examination of technology's function informs both our own scholarly work and our classroom practices. As Dawn and I both are interested in relationships between technology and culture, an important theme of our class involves making students aware that in reading a film one must navigate a different territory than that of the printed page.
These different territories specifically manifest themselves in the two classrooms
of English 364. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the class meets in a room combining
elements of the cinema and the traditional classroom. In this space where the
class critically examines film from a variety of angles we reproduce aspects
of cinema but also examine the relationship between spectator and film text.
As a class we revisit short clips from a film and discuss how the film works.
In this setting the students respond to the scenes shown. The second classroom
for our class is a viewing room where the class meets each Tuesday. Within this
second classroom the conditions of attending the cinema are reproduced. The
students watch the film attentively taking notes however the film is shown in
its entirety without interruption. The communal aspect of watching the film
we will discuss the following morning mirrors the whole class's collaboration
on the project of creating meaning concerning the film.
Another component of the technology we use in the class to support students
in their creation of meaning and self-directed learning is the course website.
The primary use of this medium in the class involves creating a forum for students
to post work. Within this context the technology works as an instructional tool
for students to see the ways in which their peers approach the tasks of the
class. By providing access to student work, the course website opens additional
avenues for learning. In classrooms where writing is the primary emphasis, students
have exposure to the work of a small number of students through activities such
as peer groups. While these postings do not serve the same purpose as peer work,
they do create a unique learning space where students examine the ways their
peers' approach the rhetorical situation of writing about film. The discussion
board additionally provides students a place to post ideas about the films from
the course. In these ways the course website functions as a site of learning,
providing both further support and information to the classroom community.
The experience of working with Dawn and the students in English 364 has been a very rewarding one. Through the practicum I have been faced with challenges of teaching film theory, selecting film clips to show in class, and leading class discussion. Throughout these challenges Dawn has provided support to aid me in my understanding of a different educational landscape. In that English 364 is both an elective for many students and the prerequisite for the new film minor in the department, I found it fascinating how Dawn approached the teaching of this course to serve the needs of various students.
The skills of collaboratively teaching that I have begun to develop in my time with Dawn in English 364 are ones that I will be able to continue using in my final quarter here at Western. In Spring Quarter 2004 I will be collaboratively teaching a section of English 101 with my fellow graduate student Liona Tannesen. I intend to adapt many of the strategies that Dawn and I used in our film course to team teaching during Spring Quarter 2004. As a beginning teacher my experience in this practicum showed me that the challenges of teaching, such as finding a better way to teach a topic, explaing an assignment, or approaching a text, are the means by which an instructor continues to reflect upon their practice and continue to develop. My work with Dawn also emphasized the importance of consulting with colleagues in approaching these challenges of teaching. Overall collaborating with Dawn significantly influenced my future teaching by providing a learning environment where I could examine, develop, and revise my own concepts and practices concerning pedagogy.
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