A few weeks ago, in lecture, I was posed with a question that has since taken up a little piece of space in the back of my mind. I was asked how I would incorporate visual literacy into a history classroom. Now while historical context can often be enhanced through visual aids, the first thought that came to mind were the films often screened in high school classrooms.
Having considered this throughout class, I started asking some of my fellow history friends if they had been shown films in class. Some of the films tossed around seemed common, particularly for grade 10 history classes, Passchedaele, Saving Private Ryan, Swing Kids, The Pianist, Schindler’s List, The Untouchables, Cinderella Man, The Great Gatsby, and Elizabeth were all tossed around. Now this list is not compiled to question the screening of these films, or others like them in class. Instead we will discuss how, if choosing to utilize these materials, how the key to using them successfully, lies in the way in which they are explored through both fact and fiction.
Take for example the classroom that screened Elizabeth. The students were instructed to view the film with a very loose historical accuracy, rather instructed to use it to immerse themselves in the era itself. Likewise, another classroom may choose to screen only the scenes of the arrival on the beaches of Normandy from Saving Private Ryan in order to best immerse students into the violence, grime and terror of the Second World War, while not dealing with the fictional quest for a missing soldier. Although these dramatized histories are often loosely based on experiences, they have the potential to interfere with learning, putting a gloss over historical events.
However, if this dramatization helps to enhance student comprehension for a unit, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Shortly after this question was posed to me in lecture, I began to see the film Selma turn into an educational opportunity for students. A number of theatres across the United States began to screen the film for free for students, particularly those in grades 7-9, an initiative designed to raise awareness and empathy for the history of the Civil Rights Movement amongst students.
Almost simultaneously however, there was a wash of articles about the historical accuracy of the film, with even a quick Google search for “Historical Accuracy in Selma” yielding over 208,000 results from publications including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Vanity Fair. Amongst this rush of articles however, it became clear that, regardless of the accuracy, students were becoming actively involved in learning some history thanks to the film.
While the accuracy in the film may not be complete, if a student is more receptive or excited to watch the documentary footage in the latter video after having seen Selma (or the attached trailer) it would appear that learning is being encouraged through a new twenty-first century medium.
Video One: Historical Bloody Sunday Footage/Interviews
(This content is not embeddable and also contains footage which should be viewed with discretion)
Video Two: Selma Trailer
Until next time,
A. Gallacher
