Questions And Topics We Can Help You To Answer

Assignment 1: “Educated by The Movies.” This assignment asks you to interpret the way a particular film of your choosing represents American education and to make an argument/claim about the film’s attitude toward this subject by paying attention to the role of stereotypes in the film. What key issue is raised in the film, and what resolutions are offered? Who is the intended audience and how does it shape the film’s issues and point?

The film you choose might be one that celebrates teachers’ relationships with students, such as Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, Dead Poets Society, Freedom Writers, The School of Rock, or Harry Potter films. Or films that depict teachers in vicious or even mortal conflict such as Teaching Mr. Tingle, The Faculty, Cheaters, or (again) Harry Potter films, or somewhere in between. Or you might choose a film that illuminates high school social dynamics like Napoleon Dynamite, Juno, or Charlie Bartlett. Choose a visual text that really interests you so you can convey that interest through an argument richly supported with details from the film. You will need to choose scenes and images to describe and analyze in detail as you build an argument about the significance of the way education is represented in this visual text.

To help you sharpen your focus and analyze your visual text, use strategies drawn from bell hooks and Gilliam and Wooden’s analyses of stereotypes and gender roles in films. These authors show how to look for the unquestioned assumptions about people and to consider how representations of main characters and sidekick characters serve to advance the plot. Use their methods for a close analysis of particular scenes and images, and then draw your own conclusions about a central issue of interest to you in the film. What is this film teaching us about American Education? What do you learn about the function of stereotyping in the process?



Requirements:
•Modern Language Association (MLA) style
•Page count 4-5 pages
•Format: •Introduction + thesis
•Body paragraphs that support the thesis
•Clear use of appropriate source documentation for quotes and/or passages used from readings and film
•Works Cited page
•Do not use personal pronouns or contractions unless part of a direct quote
•Do not use “wiki-“ for a source