Celluloid Blackboard

Teaching History with Film

Edited by:
Alan S. Marcus, University of Connecticut

A volume in the series: Contemporary Research in Education. Editor(s): Terry Osborn, University of South Florida.

Published 2006

This volume advocates for including feature films in secondary history classrooms through examining the ways in which films can promote students’ historical understanding while also addressing the potential drawbacks to using film.

In part one the essays explore three frameworks for the analysis of film by secondary students. Part two fills a void in the scholarship, reporting on four recent studies that explore how the use of film may encourage the development of students’ historical understanding. Finally, part three describes the results from two secondary teachers incorporating film into their history classrooms.

CONTENTS
Series Introduction, Terry A. Osborn. Acknowledgments. Exploring the Past with Feature Film, Alan S. Marcus and Thomas H. Levine. PART I: FRAMEWORKS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF FILM. Murrow Confronts McCarthy: Two Stages of Historical Analysis for Film and Television, John E. O’Connor. “The Way of the Future”—Probing The Aviator for Historical Understanding, Stuart Poyntz. Evaluating the Educational Potential of Hollywood History Movies, Scott Alan Metzger. PART II: THE RESEARCH BASE. Popular Film and Young People’s Understanding of the History of Native–White Relations, Peter Seixas. Students Making Sense of the Past: “It’s Almost Like Living the Event” Alan S. Marcus. Stronger than the Classroom: Movies, Texts and Conceptual Change (or Lack Thereof) Amidst Sociocultural Groups, Peter M. Meyerson and Richard J. Paxton. Attempting to Understand the Lives of Others: Film as a Tool for Developing Historical Empathy, Jeremy D. Stoddard. PART III: FROM THE CLASSROOM. Doing the Right Thing by Teaching Film in the American History Classroom: Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989) as a Case Study, Ron Briley. Using Popular Cinema to Study the 1960s and Beyond, Stephen Armstrong. Contributors. Index.