A Movie/Film Review Lesson Plan for Teachers! by COOP
Click HERE to download “The Small Town Critic’s Movie/Film Review Lesson Plan.”
It might surprise some of you that I was once a High School English teacher…
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Okay, now that you’re done laughing, I know how hard it can be to develop a lesson plan that will engage students, access their prior knowledge, allows for scaffolding and differentiated instruction, etc. (see? I talk the talk and I walk the walk). However, I wanted to offer one of my more popular lessons from years past.
I never could find a good movie/film review lesson plan on the web, so I finally made one up.
I made it pretty flexible so a teacher could modify it to his/her liking and it includes my extensive expertise on the subject. You can add the standards or objectives you need with little fuss. You’ll have students producing a quality, 2-page essay and give them a bit of education on a form of media most of them take for granted. It’s created for middle school and high school (all secondary school) kids but I imagine a few tweaks could make it work for Elementary. I’ve found this lesson works wonders for the special ed./special need kids who are usually more visually oriented.
This lesson will also placate administrators who are peeking in your windows, wondering why you’re showing movies to the kids. Present them this lesson plan and they’ll say, “Very good… carry on!” and go back to the main office, telling everyone what a good teacher you are (seriously, that’s what happens). Now that’s accountability… as long as you don’t forget to include your grade-level appropriate, state mandated standards!
As a gift to my former colleagues and all the teachers around the world, I’m giving this to you for free. You can thank me by writing “Coop Cooper is a genius” on the chalkboard. Or you could write my website address http://www.smalltowncritic.com on the board so the kids can go to my site and have hundreds of examples of reviews to help them in their assignment. Either will work.
In all seriousness, I’d appreciate hearing from teachers to see how they implemented this lesson, what modifications you used, what worked, what didn’t… I highly value the feedback since I plan on adding onto and improving this lesson.
The lesson contains:
- A lesson outline
- Vocabulary with definitions and clear examples
- A worksheet handout
- “Movie Review Project” instructions (criteria sheet w/ clear scoring explanation)
- A review template handout to show the outline of an effective review
- An accurate example of a review that reflects the template and instructions
Click HERE to download “The Small Town Critic’s Movie/Film Review Lesson Plan.”
Good luck!
-Coop
P.S. Pass this along to any teachers you think might benefit from this lesson!
P.P.S. To all you seasoned writers who want to know how to write a professional-level movie review, I’m going to be working on another document specifically for you sometime in the near future. It woudn’t hurt for you to check this one out, though. You may learn something.
Click on the hilarious-looking lamb (he still makes me laugh) to access a great directory of the best independent movie blogs on the web!
Excellent! I will try it out and let you know how it goes! Cheers, M.
Thank you, Mary! I’ve been waiting a long time for some feedback on this one (since I posted this on another site nearly 6 months ago!).
-C
Hey Coop,
this worked extremely well at a Year 10 level (Secondary School, 15-16 year-olds).
It was structured and engaging.
I have credited you and passed it on to other English teachers -and asked them to leave their feedback as well.
Thanks once again. Mary.
(Melbourne, Australia)
I love the worksheet handout. I am going to modify the assignment for a business college public speaking course I am teaching, but I am stealing your ideas. Wonderful! I will try to let you know how it goes
I loved this activity. Thanks a million for the great outline.
I’ve tried opening the link to your lesson plan, but unfortunately I’m only seeing a ‘404 error’ screen. Hopefully it’s fixed soon. This sounds like quite a useful plan that I hope to make use of in the future.
Cheers, Damien
What do you think?
Worked really well with my lower-mixed ability group! I’m going to use it for my higher ability group this year and differentiate by outcome – excellent resource. Cheers man.
Coop Cooper is a genius!! Ha! Hey! I just downloaded your Lesson plan. It looks GREAT!! I will try it out and let you know how it worked for me. My district just added a new elective class this year, Literature of Film/Film Research, and another teacher and I were the brave ones to test drive it. So far, I have had zero success finding good lessons to use, so we have been very creative. The kids seem to enjoy it so far (at least the ones who are avid movie lovers and not just movie watchers). We started off with the history of film, so far teaching the kids how film started and we dived into the wonderful world of Charlie Chaplin this past week which has been a delightful experience. Once again, thank you for taking your time to put this lesson up for us in need!