Teaching Rationale

For my rationale, as I have not had a significant amount of experience teaching or student teaching, I would like to use my high school as an example. I am going to present the class as if I was currently teaching it.

My class, entitled “Film Study,” is currently the only one at the high school. This course analyzes movies such as Psycho, Chinatown, Koyaanisqatsi, and Donnie Darko. The majority of the school and community around it view this class as an easy and useless class and do not see the value this course offers to its students. This course offers students the chance to views all types of different movies, and yes, even popular ones too. However, the students discuss the film before the viewing and are tasked to see this film not solely as entertainment. The students need to see why the media chooses to centralize around.

For example, many of the students would be interested in the film She’s the Man. This movie is based on Shakespere's play Twelfth Night, however it is loosely based and there are an overwhelming amount of differences between the film and the book. If the students were to make a list of all the differences they could see in just a few minutes following the viewing of the film they would then need to analyze why there are such major differences. It all revolves around the media and how they want audiences to view the film and how they want to increase its popularity. However, even if a student hasn’t read the play, because of their interest in this movie there would be much more interest in reading it than if the play were handed to them in a different class. Not only is this class enabling the students to dissect messages that the media deems necessary and why they are apparently necessary, but it provokes interest in analyzing media messages throughout literature as well. If the skill of media literacy is learned it can be applied to any form of media that is in existence today.

Since the form of technology has changed so drastically in even the last 10 years it is pertinent to ensure that the curriculum is relevant to today’s students. With the number of students using blogs, instant messenger, chatrooms, and text messaging increasing so dramatically, it is critical that this school have a class that can teach students how to dissect media to discover what is important and valid and not just false claims hence developing deeper critical thinking skills. I do not believe that this class alone can improve test scores in reading and writing, however this class is a critical addition to other literacy classes and can only stand to improve students understanding of different texts and other forms of literature and therefore aid in improving the aforementioned test scores and as well as other basic learning skills.