For Educators

What Filmmakers Have to Say - A Media Literacy Mini Unit

The following lesson plans utilizes the film Food, Inc., a documentary that examines food in the United States and the industry that produces it.

For this lesson plan, students will work in groups to review five legal cases in which attorney William Kunstler played a prominent role and consider the power and limitations of the legal system to bring about positive social change. The clips used in this lesson are from the film William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, a documentary on the life and legal cases of attorney William Kunstler.

In this lesson, each student will create a storyboard for a short video self-portrait that communicates the personal significance of a place, relationship, object or experience.

In this lesson, students will examine different approaches to international aid and development and begin to identify which approaches are most effective. The lesson features excerpts from the film Good Fortune, which presents the viewpoints of two Kenyans who resist development projects intended to improve quality of life in their country.

In this lesson, students will explore the work of historians and learn how to evaluate historical accounts critically. The lesson features excerpts from the POV documentary El General.

In this lesson based on the POV film Presumed Guilty, students will analyze a criminal case in Mexico involving an innocent man convicted of homicide. Students will identify and explain the protections for the accused that are outlined in the United States Constitution and infer how such protections might have affected the case in Mexico.

In this lesson, students will watch a short film about the clean-out of a foreclosed home, research the steps of foreclosure and organize these steps in a graphic organizer.

The lesson plans in this unit explore social issue documentary film and are written for grades 7-12 and college-level classes respectively. The lessons helps students understand that documentaries are a type of storytelling that explores factual stories and issues using film or video.

In this lesson, students will study the role and status of women in Korea from the early 20th century to the present and determine how gender roles may have contributed to the hardships of successive generations of women shown in a series of video clips.