"Transcendentalism" refers to philosophical, religious, and literary beliefs held by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, and other writers in New England during the 1830s and 1840s. Emerson believed in the significance of one's intuition and individuality. He expresses these beliefs in his…

Web-based digital video (DV) applications such as Animoto, Magistro, and Videolicious allow users without technical experience to easily create quality video by matching up appropriate images with text and sound. DV's multimedia capabilities encourage students to become more proficient in new literacies as well as new technologies. This piece…

Inspired by Leslie David Burns and Stergios G. Botzakis's efforts to demonstrate how texts recognized as exemplars by the Common Core State Standards could be used to address national standards and meet the needs of contemporary students, the author aims to illustrate how alternative nonfiction, nonprint texts--sports-based documentary…

This article discusses how literacy and literature goals merged in a media project designed to encourage high school students to build new connections with the poetic elements of Shakespeare's plays "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Caesar." Using the free software Animoto movie maker, students were challenged to look closely at…

In the spring of 2010, the author had the pleasure of working with four fifth graders, exploring reading engagement with graphic novels. During her research study, she became inspired by the connections these fifth graders made between the graphic novels they discussed and the film medium and ultimately concluded that this connection contributed…

How teachers can use such materials as parallel-text editions, graphic novels, and film adaptations to increase students' understanding of and interest in Shakespeare was the impetus for a classroom action research project that examined the effects of teaching methods on student comprehension and engagement. The author of this article…

Movies are a part of social discourse, and they may show "life the way people would like to make it." As educators look at society's changing views of knowledge, learning, teaching, and success, they can engage in that discourse and consider ways it does--or does not--reflect and affect pedagogies and daily lives. As Hollywood directs society's…

Considering ways to assess digital compositions and their results (i.e., media products) is an important part of the author's pedagogical practice as a teacher educator. Discovering ways to evaluate the quality, effectiveness, and efficacy of these compositions and products presents an important aspect of responsive, critical instruction. Yet this…

Discusses the issues of finding a current film acceptable to local standards and justifying it as literature. Gives teaching suggestions for dealing with the setting, characters, themes, ending scenes, and visual poetry using the films "Places in the Heart" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." (EL)

Describes several classroom exercises designed to make film grammar and narrative structure clear to the student. (RBW)

Practical advice for using student-made 8mm films in English classes. (JH)

In this article, the author discusses how students create their arts projects by responding to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In creating their arts projects, students incorporate film, painting, performance, and other arts in their imaginative and innovative responses to Coleridge's classic work. The author discusses…

Media advocates too often obscure the extent to which media production is dependent on print. (JH)

Argues for the validity and effectiveness of using film excerpts to teach high school English. Suggests various methods for using commercial films on VCRs to study themes, formal elements of literature, literary terms, and the aesthetic decisions behind film adaptations. (JG)