Deivis D. Pothin

Last week I took my class to the British Film Institute for a session on Film Narrative. According to the National Strategies website:

Recent research in this area (Marshall, 1997; Robinson, 1997; Browne, 1999; Parker, 1999; Oldham, 1999; Sefton-Green & Parker, 2000) has suggested that moving image media may have an important role to play in augmenting existing literacy teaching programmes. Robinson has shown how the concept of narrative is a key bridge spanning cognitive processes associated with print and visual media. Her notion of language, culture and the mind coalescing around powerful visual narratives, in much the same way the mainstream policymakers have – perhaps erroneously – seen curriculum subject areas revolving around literacy, is an important contribution to the debate. Equally, Browne has shown how television and video are key components in the toolkit children use on their journey towards decoding the abstractedness of written language. Collaborative research from King’s College, London and the BFI (Parker, 1999; Oldham, 1999) has not only corroborated work such as Robinson’s and Browne’s, it has also suggested that a virtuous cycle of learning outcomes is possible when using moving image media whereby both print literacy and cineliteracy (FEWG, 1999) are fostered simultaneously. The dimension of ICT compounds these claims by showing how new child-centred software packages are attempting to locate editing within a language-based paradigm (Sefton-Green & Parker, 2000).

In other words, children benefit from a visual approach when working on their literacy skills. Not to mention that they love it. It’s also worth spending some time reading the section Reading Images, Writing Words. In our session at the BFI, we watched three very different short films and reflected on the importance of sound, camera angles and repetition as a technique to make a story more humorous. Below is two of the short films we watched. Have fun!